From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Druitt,_New_South_Wales
Demographics
The 2001 City of Blacktown Social Plan identified that a high portion of Mount Druitt residents are bogans, and that they tend not to work at all. These statements are backed up by the 2006 census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It states that 46% of Mount Druitt's 13,583 residents were stoned, more than double the national average, with 10.6% just high, 3.3% sloshed and 3.2% were hammered.
December 30, 2010
December 22, 2010
Horse 1134 - East London Sesame Street
Rainy day,
Keeping the sun away
On my way,
To where the air aint sweet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street?
How to get to Sesame Street?
OK, you know how it should sound but what would happen to the eponymous street if the TV show was cast not in an idealised New York City, but in a more dreary place such as East London?
For a start you can recast most of the human cast as Cockneys. Instead of having happy jobs like teachers and doctors, they could spend a great deal of time down at the Post Office collecting their dole payments on Giro Day.
Hooper's Store is now the Lamb & Flag. The Fixit-Shop becomes a Pawnbrokers, Ernie and Bert are "them dodgy geezers" and Oscar would live in a Dustbin, surrounded by empty cans of Skol and Tennants Super. No wonder he's so grouchy all of the time - so would you be if you lived amongst a pile of dustbins.
Cookie Monster is obviously some sort of heroin junkie with an attack of the munchies. No-one walks around yelling "Cookie, Cookie, Cookie, Cookie!" unless they were on something. This does however explain why there's a 10 foot pigeon and a hairy elephant living down the street though.
Grover who's had more jobs than I've had hot curries, would be recast as an Eastern European migrant without a work permit. He's had many jobs as a waiter, a pilot, doctor, elevator operator, detective etc. and the reason for this is to evade the immigration officers.
About the only character whom I'd see any improvement in though would be Don Music. He'd most likely be playing songs on his piano after doing gigs at the Hackney Empire. I can very easily see him mining the repertoire of Chas and Dave and inserting those immortal words "Have a Banana" into everything. I can even picture Bill Bailey taking the part.
December 15, 2010
Horse 1133 - This Post Stinks
Usually when I travel into the city (and out the other side) in the mornings, train carriages are filled with commuters who have freshly pressed clothes, have showered and the vast majority of them have decided to do something with regards their odours. A morning train journey is filled with its own unique set of smells.
Likewise an afternoon train journey from the other side of the city, through it and back home again, is filled with the malodourous smells of slightly disheveled people who have had a full day's work beaten out of them. Collectively the trains and buses do not smell as crisp as they did in the morning, however this is still the general smell of humanity as it goes about its business.
Over the past fortnight, I have been ungoing physiotherapy sessions following knee surgery. This has meant that I need to depart from my usual travelling times and travel in that mysterious period known as "off-peak". I have discovered that in terms of smell, this is a highly variable period indeed.
After 9am public transport generally and trains especially carry mothers and baby carriages. Suffice to say, babies themselves are a factory of random smells, producing anything from the smell of puke, to the smells of whatever they have lovingly made in their pants.
It's not just babies though, after 9am people feel as though they now have the ability to eat things exotic and ambrosial. These smells range from the sickeningly sweet, through the spices of the east and to the smells of things rotting.
You can also find a class of people who are slightly shady from about 10am. These people tend to have a habit of smelling either like stale tobacco or perhaps the new fragrance from the House of Jack Daniel's: Sour Mash Old No.7.
Trains themselves have a distinct smell. The smell of brakes on Sydney Trains is like nothing in the world. No doubt that the smell probably causes cancer, for the simple reason that everything causes cancer. Then there is the vague smell of burnt dust if you happen to be sitting in that little alcove next to the electric units directly below the pantographs.
But the scariest smell of all which can be found on public transport, are those smells floating on the breeze that you're not entirely sure of. Are they sweet? Do they smell like poo? Kebabs even? Who knows? What is certain that if you do smell them, you spend the next 25 minutes trying to work out a) what the heck they are and b) if you should be offended or not by them.
Likewise an afternoon train journey from the other side of the city, through it and back home again, is filled with the malodourous smells of slightly disheveled people who have had a full day's work beaten out of them. Collectively the trains and buses do not smell as crisp as they did in the morning, however this is still the general smell of humanity as it goes about its business.
Over the past fortnight, I have been ungoing physiotherapy sessions following knee surgery. This has meant that I need to depart from my usual travelling times and travel in that mysterious period known as "off-peak". I have discovered that in terms of smell, this is a highly variable period indeed.
After 9am public transport generally and trains especially carry mothers and baby carriages. Suffice to say, babies themselves are a factory of random smells, producing anything from the smell of puke, to the smells of whatever they have lovingly made in their pants.
It's not just babies though, after 9am people feel as though they now have the ability to eat things exotic and ambrosial. These smells range from the sickeningly sweet, through the spices of the east and to the smells of things rotting.
You can also find a class of people who are slightly shady from about 10am. These people tend to have a habit of smelling either like stale tobacco or perhaps the new fragrance from the House of Jack Daniel's: Sour Mash Old No.7.
Trains themselves have a distinct smell. The smell of brakes on Sydney Trains is like nothing in the world. No doubt that the smell probably causes cancer, for the simple reason that everything causes cancer. Then there is the vague smell of burnt dust if you happen to be sitting in that little alcove next to the electric units directly below the pantographs.
But the scariest smell of all which can be found on public transport, are those smells floating on the breeze that you're not entirely sure of. Are they sweet? Do they smell like poo? Kebabs even? Who knows? What is certain that if you do smell them, you spend the next 25 minutes trying to work out a) what the heck they are and b) if you should be offended or not by them.
December 14, 2010
Horse 1132 - Wikileaking Everywhere & Not a Drop To Drink
Whilst the United States is baying for the blood of Julian Assange, the Wikileaks man, perhaps a little bit of perspective is in order.
Spying for want of a better term, or perhaps more generally espionage, is the obtaining of information that would otherwise be secret; can be done against an individual or an organisation, and even against a nation.
The general problem with Wikileaks is that they themselves aren't the ones doing the smuggling, but are the recipients of secret information. In some respects, Wikileaks is equivalent to someone who receives stolen goods but in this case the goods aren't tangible. Whilst it might be very easy indeed to bring charges against Wikileaks for receiving stolen information, it poses the question as to how so much information was able to be leaked in the first place. It also poses a second yet far larger issue.
If you do manage to prosecute Wikileaks for receiving stolen information and then publishing it, should you then go on and prosecute the world's media for their complicitous attitude and re-publishing it in a far more widely seen arena? It's all very well to have a symbolic villain but when that information is not only re-published across daily newspapers, magazines, television, internets and pad-pod-handheld devices; for a profit no less, what gives them the right to make money with impunity? In Australia s.153 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 refers to literary proceeds and that The commercial exploitation may be by any means, including: publishing any material in written or electronic form.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/poca2002160/s153.html
I would suggest that if Mr Assange is ever brought to trial and is convicted, then there is justifiably a huge target to go after, namely every print, broadcaster and publisher who has even made more than a cent in profit out of this.
Of course they could argue that they have a right to free speech and that it is in the public interest to know about these things. Maybe, but to hold Mr Assange guilty and the media itself guiltless would be a hideous travesty of justice.
Spying for want of a better term, or perhaps more generally espionage, is the obtaining of information that would otherwise be secret; can be done against an individual or an organisation, and even against a nation.
The general problem with Wikileaks is that they themselves aren't the ones doing the smuggling, but are the recipients of secret information. In some respects, Wikileaks is equivalent to someone who receives stolen goods but in this case the goods aren't tangible. Whilst it might be very easy indeed to bring charges against Wikileaks for receiving stolen information, it poses the question as to how so much information was able to be leaked in the first place. It also poses a second yet far larger issue.
If you do manage to prosecute Wikileaks for receiving stolen information and then publishing it, should you then go on and prosecute the world's media for their complicitous attitude and re-publishing it in a far more widely seen arena? It's all very well to have a symbolic villain but when that information is not only re-published across daily newspapers, magazines, television, internets and pad-pod-handheld devices; for a profit no less, what gives them the right to make money with impunity? In Australia s.153 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 refers to literary proceeds and that The commercial exploitation may be by any means, including: publishing any material in written or electronic form.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/poca2002160/s153.html
I would suggest that if Mr Assange is ever brought to trial and is convicted, then there is justifiably a huge target to go after, namely every print, broadcaster and publisher who has even made more than a cent in profit out of this.
Of course they could argue that they have a right to free speech and that it is in the public interest to know about these things. Maybe, but to hold Mr Assange guilty and the media itself guiltless would be a hideous travesty of justice.
December 07, 2010
Horse 1131a - Sometimes That Story Has a Happy Ending
Swann got 5 wickets, Pietersen's 227, Cook made 148, and Australia have had their first innings defeat since the West Indies hammered them in 1993.
To sum up - England win by:
- 1 inning
- 71 runs
- 5 wickets
- 11 players
- 1 country
- hundreds of alcoholic beverages
- a quarter of a flag
- and an entire language.
And CricInfo are too craven to acknowledge the result:
http://twitpic.com/3dm0ze
Horse 1131 - Test Cricket is a Story
As we head into Day 5 of the Second Test between Australia and England at the Adelaide Oval, England need 6 wickets to either claim victory (or to score the runs if Australia score another 137) and Australia need 137 to make England bat again. This is what makes Test Cricket more than anything else so delightfully delicious, that on Day 5, the whole thing can be all for naught if the weather dictates.
Back in Horse 241 I wrote a piece which said that Cricket is Delightfully Stupid. Test Cricket is therefore the height of this delightful stupidity.
The thing about most long distance or endurance sports of which undoubtedly Test Cricket must surely be one, is that instead of something all being over in a flash and largely a test of either strength or speed, they all are more a test of character. All long distance or endurance sports are more about the story of the event rather than a 30 second highlight reel.
The Le Mans 24 Hour Race can often result in multi-million dollarpound teams having a 15 pennycent component fail at the 22 hour mark; thus handing victory to a lesser and not as well funded team. For some teams even just making it to the end is an achievement.
Even if you don't remember the names, I think we were captivated by the struggle between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut who fought a very long and tiring 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68 match at Wimbledon this year. We even collectively felt relief when this epic battle of wills finally came to a close.
So it is with Test Cricket. Unlike the decidedly undelightful stupidity of T-20-Twenty, and the whole One Day nonsense, a Test Match evolves and changes almost like a painting with every stroke. Pietersen's 227 is an obvious stand out in this match, but it wouldn't have even been possible without the gallant efforts of Cook, Trott, Collingwood and Bell. Anderson's thumping 4/51 with the ball in Australia's innings really sliced them to pieces but even Hussey showed some ticker and valiantly hacked away for his 93.
Katich must have wanted to crawl into a hole after being left stranded on a Diamond Duck, but his knock of 43 in the second dig still shows that sport is one of the few theatres where if you fail once, you can stage a fightback and show your colours on the nest attempt.
With clouds looming over the horizon, even Mother Nature herself can affect the outcome of a match. If this were a football match, teams might be pleased to pick up a point for their efforts, but over five days you can either see all your hard work dashed to pieces like so many discarded bits of pottery, or be saved from having your face dragged through the mud, if the weather decides to declare everyone's innings for naught.
Of course the other thing about cricket is that because it does lend itself to being broadcast on the radio, it has formed the soundtrack to many a summer in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
Long may it continue!
BBC Coverage - With Aggers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live_sports_extra
ABC Coverage - Also with Aggers when he's not on the Beeb
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/
Test Match Sofa - Not with Aggers, but a right hoot.
http://www.testmatchsofa.com/
Back in Horse 241 I wrote a piece which said that Cricket is Delightfully Stupid. Test Cricket is therefore the height of this delightful stupidity.
The thing about most long distance or endurance sports of which undoubtedly Test Cricket must surely be one, is that instead of something all being over in a flash and largely a test of either strength or speed, they all are more a test of character. All long distance or endurance sports are more about the story of the event rather than a 30 second highlight reel.
The Le Mans 24 Hour Race can often result in multi-million dollarpound teams having a 15 pennycent component fail at the 22 hour mark; thus handing victory to a lesser and not as well funded team. For some teams even just making it to the end is an achievement.
Even if you don't remember the names, I think we were captivated by the struggle between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut who fought a very long and tiring 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68 match at Wimbledon this year. We even collectively felt relief when this epic battle of wills finally came to a close.
So it is with Test Cricket. Unlike the decidedly undelightful stupidity of T-20-Twenty, and the whole One Day nonsense, a Test Match evolves and changes almost like a painting with every stroke. Pietersen's 227 is an obvious stand out in this match, but it wouldn't have even been possible without the gallant efforts of Cook, Trott, Collingwood and Bell. Anderson's thumping 4/51 with the ball in Australia's innings really sliced them to pieces but even Hussey showed some ticker and valiantly hacked away for his 93.
Katich must have wanted to crawl into a hole after being left stranded on a Diamond Duck, but his knock of 43 in the second dig still shows that sport is one of the few theatres where if you fail once, you can stage a fightback and show your colours on the nest attempt.
With clouds looming over the horizon, even Mother Nature herself can affect the outcome of a match. If this were a football match, teams might be pleased to pick up a point for their efforts, but over five days you can either see all your hard work dashed to pieces like so many discarded bits of pottery, or be saved from having your face dragged through the mud, if the weather decides to declare everyone's innings for naught.
Of course the other thing about cricket is that because it does lend itself to being broadcast on the radio, it has formed the soundtrack to many a summer in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
Long may it continue!
BBC Coverage - With Aggers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live_sports_extra
ABC Coverage - Also with Aggers when he's not on the Beeb
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/
Test Match Sofa - Not with Aggers, but a right hoot.
http://www.testmatchsofa.com/
December 03, 2010
Horse 1130 - My Scorn Against FIFA
I have held the opinion for at least 10 years now that there is a very strong degree of systematic bias against the English speaking nations within FIFA.
As a result, every English speaking nation must be forced to dodgy refereeing decisions to the point where it costs them any chance of ever winning anything. If you don't believe me, let's just quickly have a review of this year's World Cup in South Africa:
Every English speaking nation at the 2010 tournament at critical moments was forced to suffer bad refereeing decisions. I assume that this must be some sort of unwritten FIFA policy. If there was only one or two it might be seen as unfortunate, but against all of them? Come on.
Of course there is a fairly obvious reason why FIFA would hold such a resentment. The International Football Association Board or IFAB which determines the Laws of the Game, is made up of 8 members. Four being representatives of each of the home nations (namely England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales), and four members from FIFA.
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/organisation/ip-100_04e_ifab_9481.pdf
It seems to me that because FIFA don't happen to control some aspect of the game (much like their resentment towards UEFA for having a shiny, glossy European Champions League that's worth so much money) then they feel the need to retaliate.
Now if you apply this to the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, then the results which we have seen this morning should have been fairly predictable.
On paper, the best bids should have been England and the USA. There is a minimum requirement that the host nation has 12 stadiums that can hold at least 40,000 people. England being the home of football not surprisingly has 56, and the USA which hosts American Football at both national and college level has more than 200. Russia currently has 3 and Qatar which has a total population of less than half of Sydney, only has 1 at the moment.
The fact that the 2018 and 2022 World Cups went to two nations whose bids are backed by oil money, and given that only last week there were allegations of bribery by the BBC's Panorama program, doesn't really do much to dissuade my suspicions that FIFA really are a bunch of corrupt bastards. It also makes a mockery of the banner that FIFA bring out before most international matches. It is perfectly alright for them to have a "Say No To Racism" because discrimination on the grounds of the language you speak isn't actually racism.
Actually the best thing that the USA, England and Australia could have done in their campaigns would have been to just give up before they started because they were never going to win. That truly would have been the best thing according to FIFA's own motto "For The Good Of The Game".
The final results of this morning are: Corruption and Bribery 2 - Football 0.
As a result, every English speaking nation must be forced to dodgy refereeing decisions to the point where it costs them any chance of ever winning anything. If you don't believe me, let's just quickly have a review of this year's World Cup in South Africa:
- England's disallowed goal against Germany, when ALL the ball had crossed the line.
- Australia having Cahill sent off against Germany, and thus losing their only striker.
- Italy being awarded a penalty against New Zealand (when it wasn't even inside the area)
- Referee Koman Coulibaly disallowing a USA goal against Slovenia for no apparent reason at all.
- Ghana scoring against the USA in the 94th minute when there were only supposed to be 2 minutes of added time.
- Ireland being knocked out of the qualifiers against France when Thierry Henry handballed a goal.
Every English speaking nation at the 2010 tournament at critical moments was forced to suffer bad refereeing decisions. I assume that this must be some sort of unwritten FIFA policy. If there was only one or two it might be seen as unfortunate, but against all of them? Come on.
Of course there is a fairly obvious reason why FIFA would hold such a resentment. The International Football Association Board or IFAB which determines the Laws of the Game, is made up of 8 members. Four being representatives of each of the home nations (namely England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales), and four members from FIFA.
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/organisation/ip-100_04e_ifab_9481.pdf
It seems to me that because FIFA don't happen to control some aspect of the game (much like their resentment towards UEFA for having a shiny, glossy European Champions League that's worth so much money) then they feel the need to retaliate.
Now if you apply this to the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, then the results which we have seen this morning should have been fairly predictable.
On paper, the best bids should have been England and the USA. There is a minimum requirement that the host nation has 12 stadiums that can hold at least 40,000 people. England being the home of football not surprisingly has 56, and the USA which hosts American Football at both national and college level has more than 200. Russia currently has 3 and Qatar which has a total population of less than half of Sydney, only has 1 at the moment.
The fact that the 2018 and 2022 World Cups went to two nations whose bids are backed by oil money, and given that only last week there were allegations of bribery by the BBC's Panorama program, doesn't really do much to dissuade my suspicions that FIFA really are a bunch of corrupt bastards. It also makes a mockery of the banner that FIFA bring out before most international matches. It is perfectly alright for them to have a "Say No To Racism" because discrimination on the grounds of the language you speak isn't actually racism.
Actually the best thing that the USA, England and Australia could have done in their campaigns would have been to just give up before they started because they were never going to win. That truly would have been the best thing according to FIFA's own motto "For The Good Of The Game".
The final results of this morning are: Corruption and Bribery 2 - Football 0.
November 26, 2010
Horse 1129 - Why Can't We Have Nice Things?
Is it?
Something which has been bothering me for a long time, is that in just about every facet of modern life, we seem to be surrounding ourselves in ugly or boring things. If I want to go out and replace my worn out furniture, I can not seem to find anything which looks remotely nice. Things today are produced with only a short term end in mind, and as such don't appear to have the thoughts of a craftsman poured into them.
You can see this right across architecture, White Goods, Brown Goods, motor cars, music, etc. etc. etc.
It often feels like the only things that are made with their aesthetic beauty in mind anymore are someone's dinner in a high class restaurant and possibly high-end watches.
I wanna know WHY we can't have nice things?
Before the advent of photography, painters and sculptors had a different purpose for art. If they were trying to capture how someone looked, it was usually done through rose-tinted glasses because they were being commissioned by either the person who wanted their likeness painted, or they wanted one of their family or friends painted. The motivation although tied with with money was to make their subject look nice.
With the painting of landscapes, although the artist would on occasion try to invoke a sense of fear, or perhaps sorrow in their work, in general they still managed to capture the beauty of view in at least one aspect.
Even with industrial manufacture, items which were mass produced were often things of beauty. A hundred years ago, people put thought into making ironwork for railings and fleur-de-lis which often stood as a regal, political, heraldic or symbolic device, now suddenly found itself on the front fence of the houses of workers. One of my favourite subjects the motor-car, used to be styled by people who still thought about creating machines which looked beautiful. Something as humble as the Austin A30 which by all accounts was a terrible motor car mechanically and would be beaten by a Toyota Yaris, still looks asthetically nicer 50 years on. The Ford Cortina Mk1 is also a better looking and prettier car than today's Ford Focus.
Radio sets used to be massive pieces of furniture which would often adorn the parlours and sitting rooms across the land. Today we have plasma screen TV's which fulfil largely the same sorts of function, but an old radio is a warm looking thing whereas today's recto-linear TVs, MP3-Pod machines, Tablets, all somehow look cold and aloof.
I think that the same can be said for music. When an Austrian nobleman comissioned a symphony in C which defied all earthly description, the composers who crafted their pieces did so with all the care than any true artisan would.
Now it can be said that practically anyone with a decent computer and sound editing software can potentially produce music. The charts today are flooded with largely talentless individuals who can be autotuned to perfection or autotuned with weird effects. I seriously doubt whether anyone is actually trying to make beautiful music anymore.
Mankind it must be said has been endowed with all sorts of ingenuity, and an incredible drive to explore, build and create. I totally understand the need to make a dollar; I even accept the fact begrudingly that some people are hideously greedy in pursuit of that dollar, and perhaps to some degree why we often need to surround ourselves with material possessions BUT if we are going to do this, then why must we forcibly subject ourselves to ugliness?
This post from elsewhere in the blogosphere also touches on this subject:
http://everydayeverywhereeveryone.blogspot.com/2009/02/oscar-wilde-wallpaper-objects-and.html
November 24, 2010
Horse 1128 - Religion Isn't The Cause Of "Poison"... It's People
This post comes from the jumping off point of this article from the ABC's Unleased website:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41376.html
Religion for want of a better word is a set of practices based on or that follow as a result of one's faith. To put it more simply: Faith is where and what you believe in; Religion is what you do about it.
Everyone who has ever been born on this planet has believed in something, even atheists. Athiests might not believe in god/s but they do believe in an abscence of them; by definition this is still a belief in a position. It follows that everyone who has ever lived has their own unique religion of sorts (including atheists), and although it might not necessarily be an organised religion, the fact still holds true that everyone has their own religion.
If it is true that everyone has their own religion, then for their religion to be "poisonous", this can not be the fault of the religion but of the people themselves who formally make up the religion if it is a collective one, or even the individual.
This is why I think that Mr Hodge is quite wrong is saying that:
Getting back to the point about religion being "poisonous", or rather the people who make up a collective religion being the cause of that poison, then you don't need to go to any religious institute to find evidence of this. One merely needs to open the newspaper on a daily basis to read about man's injustice to his fellow man, or even look at the headlines on the ABC's own news website:
Belanglo teen killed with axe - Fatal shooting police 'tried to warn patrons' - Police restore calm after Yuendumu violence - Vic Coalition unveils child abuse, sentencing reforms.
I cite all of these and thousands more on a daily basis as proof of mankind's internal poison. I haven't got around to even mentioning religion's part in all this because quite frankly I don't need to. The problem isn't religion but people themselves.
How is "religion" connected to this hideousness I hear you ask? Obviously if religion is what one does, then the people who killed the teen with an axe, or the perpetrators of child abuse or the people of Yuendumu, must all be following their own internal religions; however twisted and not normal they happen to be. Every individual must be held accountable for their own actions, and if religion happens to be what one does, then one's actions and one's religion must be either identical or else mesh together very well indeed.
Of course it is very easy to stand back from all of this and act "piously" for want of a better word, but if we're all following our own internal religion and we all happen to be the root cause of that "poison", then is it little wonder that society seems to progressively get worse? That violent crime increases over time?
Maybe there was some wisdom after all in "the good book" which society seemingly has laid aside because it was no longer "relevant". Collectively are our throats are open graves? Do our tongues practice deceit? What are the results of that poison anyway? Is it difficult to hear cursing and bitterness the second you step out onto the street? If you switch on the telly of a night can you find people who are swift to shed blood? When the GFC hit, were people quick to mark up ruin and misery in their moral accountbooks along with losses financial?
Maybe there was some wisdom when it was said of mankind that there was no one righteous, not even one and that there is no-one who understands; no-one who seeks God. Just what is the point of religion anyway if together we have become worthless and there really is no-one who does good?
It seems that to pinpoint religion as “poisonous”, and to identify its origins in human nature, would lead one to think there is something very defective about human beings themselves and their nature.
Isn't that the very point of Christianity anyway? That there is in fact something hideously defective about human beings themselves in their nature? Christianity itself starts with the very assumption that both collectively and individually that everyone who has ever been born on this planet is flawed, defective and utterly incapable of making peace with their creator. It assumes that everyone does carry round a poison which makes us unacceptable to our creator, and it explains very easily why mankind as a whole and people individually need a saviour from that poison.
But to suggest that it is religion's fault for poisoning society simply defies both common sense and logic. Somehow I think that Mr Hodge needs to go back have a check of his workings, and then get back to us.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41376.html
Religion for want of a better word is a set of practices based on or that follow as a result of one's faith. To put it more simply: Faith is where and what you believe in; Religion is what you do about it.
Everyone who has ever been born on this planet has believed in something, even atheists. Athiests might not believe in god/s but they do believe in an abscence of them; by definition this is still a belief in a position. It follows that everyone who has ever lived has their own unique religion of sorts (including atheists), and although it might not necessarily be an organised religion, the fact still holds true that everyone has their own religion.
If it is true that everyone has their own religion, then for their religion to be "poisonous", this can not be the fault of the religion but of the people themselves who formally make up the religion if it is a collective one, or even the individual.
This is why I think that Mr Hodge is quite wrong is saying that:
Yet, there is no fool-proof way to define “religion” that will include such belief systems as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism while excluding nationalism, political ideologies, capitalism, pop culture, sport and more.
If there is is no fool-proof way to define “religion”, then why have I done precisely that and included EVERY possible belief system. If religion is what one does as a result of one's faith in whatever that happens to be, then it doesn't even need to make mention of buildings, organisations, or the existance of god, gods or an abscence of them.Getting back to the point about religion being "poisonous", or rather the people who make up a collective religion being the cause of that poison, then you don't need to go to any religious institute to find evidence of this. One merely needs to open the newspaper on a daily basis to read about man's injustice to his fellow man, or even look at the headlines on the ABC's own news website:
Belanglo teen killed with axe - Fatal shooting police 'tried to warn patrons' - Police restore calm after Yuendumu violence - Vic Coalition unveils child abuse, sentencing reforms.
I cite all of these and thousands more on a daily basis as proof of mankind's internal poison. I haven't got around to even mentioning religion's part in all this because quite frankly I don't need to. The problem isn't religion but people themselves.
How is "religion" connected to this hideousness I hear you ask? Obviously if religion is what one does, then the people who killed the teen with an axe, or the perpetrators of child abuse or the people of Yuendumu, must all be following their own internal religions; however twisted and not normal they happen to be. Every individual must be held accountable for their own actions, and if religion happens to be what one does, then one's actions and one's religion must be either identical or else mesh together very well indeed.
Of course it is very easy to stand back from all of this and act "piously" for want of a better word, but if we're all following our own internal religion and we all happen to be the root cause of that "poison", then is it little wonder that society seems to progressively get worse? That violent crime increases over time?
Maybe there was some wisdom after all in "the good book" which society seemingly has laid aside because it was no longer "relevant". Collectively are our throats are open graves? Do our tongues practice deceit? What are the results of that poison anyway? Is it difficult to hear cursing and bitterness the second you step out onto the street? If you switch on the telly of a night can you find people who are swift to shed blood? When the GFC hit, were people quick to mark up ruin and misery in their moral accountbooks along with losses financial?
Maybe there was some wisdom when it was said of mankind that there was no one righteous, not even one and that there is no-one who understands; no-one who seeks God. Just what is the point of religion anyway if together we have become worthless and there really is no-one who does good?
It seems that to pinpoint religion as “poisonous”, and to identify its origins in human nature, would lead one to think there is something very defective about human beings themselves and their nature.
Isn't that the very point of Christianity anyway? That there is in fact something hideously defective about human beings themselves in their nature? Christianity itself starts with the very assumption that both collectively and individually that everyone who has ever been born on this planet is flawed, defective and utterly incapable of making peace with their creator. It assumes that everyone does carry round a poison which makes us unacceptable to our creator, and it explains very easily why mankind as a whole and people individually need a saviour from that poison.
But to suggest that it is religion's fault for poisoning society simply defies both common sense and logic. Somehow I think that Mr Hodge needs to go back have a check of his workings, and then get back to us.
November 19, 2010
Horse 1127 - Apple Gets to the Core of Music.
The two thoughts in this are connected, buy only just:
Part A:
This week Apple made an announcement which had the world's practically cooing for the scoop before anyone else got it. When I heard news of the upcoming "big announcement" my first thought was that iTunes was going to announce a something related to "the cloud" or maybe a paid subscription service.
Apple announced in May that it building a data server farm in North Carolina. Presumably it's got something to do with Apple TV, though the idea of iTunes in the Cloud has been kicking about for a while, which I guess would be like Spotify which currently operates in Europe.
If Apple was going to go down the cloud storage route for music, then in theory you could have your iCloud pod machine with only a minimal flash drive in it, and then run a micro-payments system at say 0.5 of a cent per song; the iCloud would send off some sort of request into the cloud play the song, and then delete the song from the flash drive.
I imagine that it would be a similar business model to XM Satellite Radio mashed with pay-per-view which would be essentially a pay-for-service affair rather like cable TV.
Part B:
Instead we only got the rather paltry announcement that the Beatles catalogue was finally on iTunes. Wow... really, just wow... sigh.
I think that it's a sad indictment on the current output of the record companies if almost 50 year old music is able to cause a stir. When you consider that they're whinging about falling music sales, I think it makes a pretty strong statement. What this does say is that EMI, Virgin, Warner et. al. should start producing music that lots of people actually would like to buy.
When you have bands who grind away in sheds, garages and playing small venues like pubs and RSLs, they tend to produce music that appeals to more people on average than manufactured pop idols.
Bands and musicians who have to learn their craft, tend to produce higher quality of music than technicians who in principle aren't musicians, playing with computers in a back room. This is compounded when those same people with computers can turn people who already can't sing into autotuned marvels, with an electronic drum beat.
I that you'll find generally that when rock music sits atop the music charts, that there probably a higher turnover in music sales. This might sound ridiculous, but I think that you're more likely to pack out very large stadia with a rock concert than a dance outfit.
No offense to Ke$ha (who according to the Herald, went skydiving over Sydney yesterday), but she isn't exactly going to fill the SCG in the same way that U2, The Rolling Stones, or Green Day might do. In fact it was the Beatles themselves who played the first major stadium concert in history, before a crowd of 55,600 at Shea Stadium in August 1965.
I don't think that it's actually fair to blame flagging music sales on illegal music, when for the most part with the age of the digital download, you can buy a song for $1.29. In a world where glorified no-talent shows like Pop Idol, X-Factor, spit out saccharine "singing sensations", is it little wonder that when the TV show's season ends, no-one cares anymore?
Almost 50 years after the Beatles started making music, their records are still able to cause a stir for the simple reason that they put in the effort and learnt how to be real musicians.
Image isn't everything despite what you've heard because music itself is an aural experience not a visual one. If record companies simply just shut their eyes and actually listened to the crud they're putting out, maybe they might be able to sell proper music again.
Part A:
This week Apple made an announcement which had the world's practically cooing for the scoop before anyone else got it. When I heard news of the upcoming "big announcement" my first thought was that iTunes was going to announce a something related to "the cloud" or maybe a paid subscription service.
Apple announced in May that it building a data server farm in North Carolina. Presumably it's got something to do with Apple TV, though the idea of iTunes in the Cloud has been kicking about for a while, which I guess would be like Spotify which currently operates in Europe.
If Apple was going to go down the cloud storage route for music, then in theory you could have your iCloud pod machine with only a minimal flash drive in it, and then run a micro-payments system at say 0.5 of a cent per song; the iCloud would send off some sort of request into the cloud play the song, and then delete the song from the flash drive.
I imagine that it would be a similar business model to XM Satellite Radio mashed with pay-per-view which would be essentially a pay-for-service affair rather like cable TV.
Part B:
Instead we only got the rather paltry announcement that the Beatles catalogue was finally on iTunes. Wow... really, just wow... sigh.
I think that it's a sad indictment on the current output of the record companies if almost 50 year old music is able to cause a stir. When you consider that they're whinging about falling music sales, I think it makes a pretty strong statement. What this does say is that EMI, Virgin, Warner et. al. should start producing music that lots of people actually would like to buy.
When you have bands who grind away in sheds, garages and playing small venues like pubs and RSLs, they tend to produce music that appeals to more people on average than manufactured pop idols.
Bands and musicians who have to learn their craft, tend to produce higher quality of music than technicians who in principle aren't musicians, playing with computers in a back room. This is compounded when those same people with computers can turn people who already can't sing into autotuned marvels, with an electronic drum beat.
I that you'll find generally that when rock music sits atop the music charts, that there probably a higher turnover in music sales. This might sound ridiculous, but I think that you're more likely to pack out very large stadia with a rock concert than a dance outfit.
No offense to Ke$ha (who according to the Herald, went skydiving over Sydney yesterday), but she isn't exactly going to fill the SCG in the same way that U2, The Rolling Stones, or Green Day might do. In fact it was the Beatles themselves who played the first major stadium concert in history, before a crowd of 55,600 at Shea Stadium in August 1965.
I don't think that it's actually fair to blame flagging music sales on illegal music, when for the most part with the age of the digital download, you can buy a song for $1.29. In a world where glorified no-talent shows like Pop Idol, X-Factor, spit out saccharine "singing sensations", is it little wonder that when the TV show's season ends, no-one cares anymore?
Almost 50 years after the Beatles started making music, their records are still able to cause a stir for the simple reason that they put in the effort and learnt how to be real musicians.
Image isn't everything despite what you've heard because music itself is an aural experience not a visual one. If record companies simply just shut their eyes and actually listened to the crud they're putting out, maybe they might be able to sell proper music again.
November 11, 2010
Horse 1126 - What "core partnership"?
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/howards-end--a-note-in-bushs-memoirs-20101110-17noz.html
With regards yesterday's post of what Ms Clinton called the United States' "core partnership" with Australia, I wonder exactly a) what she could have meant if it was mentioned just three times in a former President's memoirs and b) just what the heck does Australia gain from this so called "core partnership"? What is in it for us?
Actually there is a fair question - What is in it for us?
Foreign policy in Australia from before federation has been to do whatever Big Brother happens to tell it to do. There is not a single example (save maybe in WW2) where Australians were fighting in a theatre remotely connected to their homeland.
Big Brother Britain sent us to South Africa, the fields of Europe twice, North Africa, and in return the Menzies government formulated a plan called the Brisbane Line to surrender northern Australia pending invasion.
Big Brother America has sent us to Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq twice, Afghanistan and when Australia asked for a wee bit of help with conflicts in East Timor, we were politely told where to go and how to get there.
What I find really surprising is this photo and link:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/images/20010910-1.html
Take note of the date Sept 10, 2001. Did the memories of the day that followed completely obliterate his memories of the day before, or was Mr Howard and the "core partnership" just so umimportant that it didn't even figure?
Formally the United States, Australia and New Zealand signed the ANZUS treaty in 1951, but in 1985 when a visit of USS Buchanan was denied by New Zealand because of nuclear weapons launching capabilities that the ship had. Negotiations eventually broke down and the United States suspended its treaty obligations with New Zealand.
If the United States officially called someone whom it formally had a treaty with "a friend, but not an ally", then surely this should have been worth noticing.
The way I see it, Australia has sent troops and hardware to die on fields all over the world for the benefit of other nations and since the end of WW2 almost exclusively at the request of the United States. If a former President can't even be bothered to remember the existence of a nation's leader which he supposedly had a "core partnership" with, can it be really be said to exist at all?
Mr Bush mentions Mr Howard just three times in his 500-page Decision Points.
...
The only other reference is a footnote to observations the former president makes about Tony Blair, who features heavily in the Bush tome, reflecting the primacy of the US-British "special relationship".
- Sydney Morning Herald, 11 Nov, 2011With regards yesterday's post of what Ms Clinton called the United States' "core partnership" with Australia, I wonder exactly a) what she could have meant if it was mentioned just three times in a former President's memoirs and b) just what the heck does Australia gain from this so called "core partnership"? What is in it for us?
Actually there is a fair question - What is in it for us?
Foreign policy in Australia from before federation has been to do whatever Big Brother happens to tell it to do. There is not a single example (save maybe in WW2) where Australians were fighting in a theatre remotely connected to their homeland.
Big Brother Britain sent us to South Africa, the fields of Europe twice, North Africa, and in return the Menzies government formulated a plan called the Brisbane Line to surrender northern Australia pending invasion.
Big Brother America has sent us to Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq twice, Afghanistan and when Australia asked for a wee bit of help with conflicts in East Timor, we were politely told where to go and how to get there.
What I find really surprising is this photo and link:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/images/20010910-1.html
With their hands over their hearts, President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard perform a military pass and review at the Washington Navy Yard Sept. 10, 2001. Commemorating 50 years of military alliance, the President and Prime Minister spoke to assembled military personnel, shared lunch and spoke privately in the Oval Office.
Take note of the date Sept 10, 2001. Did the memories of the day that followed completely obliterate his memories of the day before, or was Mr Howard and the "core partnership" just so umimportant that it didn't even figure?
Formally the United States, Australia and New Zealand signed the ANZUS treaty in 1951, but in 1985 when a visit of USS Buchanan was denied by New Zealand because of nuclear weapons launching capabilities that the ship had. Negotiations eventually broke down and the United States suspended its treaty obligations with New Zealand.
If the United States officially called someone whom it formally had a treaty with "a friend, but not an ally", then surely this should have been worth noticing.
The way I see it, Australia has sent troops and hardware to die on fields all over the world for the benefit of other nations and since the end of WW2 almost exclusively at the request of the United States. If a former President can't even be bothered to remember the existence of a nation's leader which he supposedly had a "core partnership" with, can it be really be said to exist at all?
November 10, 2010
Horse 1125 - Hillary thinks that the US and Oz is a "core partnership"
http://www.smh.com.au/national/back-us-over-china-clinton-20101108-17kis.html
How nice. Ms Clinton seems to think that the United States and Australian relationship is somehow one of the US's "core partnerships". Something however doesn't quite add up here thought. Namely, why is it that Hilary Clinton of all people is the one to say that the US-Oz relationship is a "core partnership"? If it really was so important, wouldn't it have been the President himself to say that?
I think back to those heady days of May, before Ms Gillard became Prime Minister:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/barack-obama-to-visit-australia-in-june/story-e6frg6nf-1225867141364
This means to say that even before Ms Gillard became Prime Minister, Mr Obama had already reneged on a promise to come to Australia. Sadly this wasn't even the first time this had happened:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/02/2807308.htm
Let me get this straight: The then PM Kevin Rudd invited Mr Obama to visit Australia all the way back in November of 2009. Now obviously Christmas seems to have gotten in the way and he was supposed to arrive in March. That didn't work out and he was then supposed to arrive in June. That also work out and so he sent Hillary to arrive in his place.
I ask you, does this sound like the actions of a leader or a nation who truly believes in the existence of a "core partnership"? Perhaps this is similar to the idea of Mr Howard's "non-core promises", in that a "core partnership" must be something which can be ignored easily.
Certainly that's true of the American people because many American citizens think that the US Government ignores them as well. Perhaps there there is a grain of truth to what Ms Clinton says. When she says that "the aspirations that Australians feel are very much in line with the way Americans think and act". We both think that the US Government ignores us when it is convenient.
I think that if Australia wanted to be more important to the United States then we need to move on from our "core partnership" and move to a new "hard core partnership". We could start by charging rent on all the land occupied by US Military bases as part of this so called "core partnership", because you're not hard core unless you live hard core and the legend of the rent is way hard core... partnership.
"I think that the core values of the Australian people, the quality of life, the standard of living, the aspirations that Australians feel are very much in line with the way Americans think and act.
So our relationship is essential to both of us. That doesn't mean we won't have relationships with others, but it does mean that this will remain the core partnership."
- Hillary Clinton, reported in the SMH, 9th Nov.
How nice. Ms Clinton seems to think that the United States and Australian relationship is somehow one of the US's "core partnerships". Something however doesn't quite add up here thought. Namely, why is it that Hilary Clinton of all people is the one to say that the US-Oz relationship is a "core partnership"? If it really was so important, wouldn't it have been the President himself to say that?
I think back to those heady days of May, before Ms Gillard became Prime Minister:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/barack-obama-to-visit-australia-in-june/story-e6frg6nf-1225867141364
US President Barack Obama's postponed visit to Australia has been rescheduled for June 18, featuring an address to parliament and a weekend in Sydney.
This means to say that even before Ms Gillard became Prime Minister, Mr Obama had already reneged on a promise to come to Australia. Sadly this wasn't even the first time this had happened:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/02/2807308.htm
US President Barack Obama and his family will visit Australia in late March, the White House has confirmed.
...
Mr Rudd initially invited Mr Obama to Australia when he was last in Washington in late November.
Let me get this straight: The then PM Kevin Rudd invited Mr Obama to visit Australia all the way back in November of 2009. Now obviously Christmas seems to have gotten in the way and he was supposed to arrive in March. That didn't work out and he was then supposed to arrive in June. That also work out and so he sent Hillary to arrive in his place.
I ask you, does this sound like the actions of a leader or a nation who truly believes in the existence of a "core partnership"? Perhaps this is similar to the idea of Mr Howard's "non-core promises", in that a "core partnership" must be something which can be ignored easily.
Certainly that's true of the American people because many American citizens think that the US Government ignores them as well. Perhaps there there is a grain of truth to what Ms Clinton says. When she says that "the aspirations that Australians feel are very much in line with the way Americans think and act". We both think that the US Government ignores us when it is convenient.
I think that if Australia wanted to be more important to the United States then we need to move on from our "core partnership" and move to a new "hard core partnership". We could start by charging rent on all the land occupied by US Military bases as part of this so called "core partnership", because you're not hard core unless you live hard core and the legend of the rent is way hard core... partnership.
November 02, 2010
Horse 1124 - Q and A Transcript - 1st Nov 1605.
TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A, which tonight is live from the House of Lords itself. To answer your questions tonight: the "Bard of Avon", theatre owner and playwright William Shakespeare, prominent pro-Catholic spokesperson Guy Fawkes, Member of Parliament and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire Edmund Sheffield, statesman, scientist and KC Francis Bacon and celebrated alchemist and mathematician, John Dee. Please welcome our panel.
Remember that Q&A is live from 09.30 Eastern Time, so join the Twitter conversation by sending in your carrier pigeons, or mail us by hiring a herald and runner. But let's go to our very first question, which comes from Lord de Rouge from Didcott.
LORD DE ROUGE: Given the patronage of His Majesty of one particular theatre, does the panel feel that the arts generally shall suffer henceforth a hideous degradation?
TONY JONES: I think that we should hear from William on this first.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Prithee, shall I compare thee to a lady with birth pangs? There is wailing and much shouting, but whence the babe be born, a great celebration may be found amongst its family.
GUY FAWKES: You say that but you are the very one in receipt of poor a thousand crowns a year from the king's own purse.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Thou art a knave!
GUY FAWKES: Call me a knave again and a thousand times a knave, and yet thou are not fit to be even called a beggar.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: What is this nonsense?
GUY FAWKES: It is you and people like you, and indeed this great parliament who resides over in your own words "this realm, this land, this England", who beg for the King's shilling and marry get it, for thou art little more than a blaggard who dost sit at the end of the King's chamber and play for sport? No sir, thou playest for monies.
Even thy great theatre which thou call "the Globe", is not a globe but a temple to thy own self-aggrandising, and a coffin to thy spirit. Dost thou pay thy taxes as the peasant folk do? Not a bar of it. Not a bar. Thou dost not only withhold thy taxes but thou playest for monies from the peasantry who can ill-afford to surrender the bread from their table.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Prithee good sir, wouldst thou hold the wages back from a merchant? Consider this very frame upon which thy eyes are set and thou tongue which flashes quick against to be the very frame of a merchant who trades not in rude goods, but of wit, merriment and mirth. The theatre doth employ more than merely players but singers and minstrels, and magick men, and orators. Indeed this very House of Lords, be a theatre of our Lords and Masters, some of who derive their monies from oratory within this place.
TONY JONES: If we wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear Lord Sheffield's thoughts.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: What?...
TONY JONES: Do you think that the King favouring one theatre over another is a bad thing for the arts?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Well I... er... that is to say... it could very well be that if one thing leads to another thing that maybe... what?
TONY JONES: Do you think that the King is playing favourites?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: That is to say... I should jolly well hope so. He is the King.
TONY JONES: I think that we'll leave that question there. Our next question comes via a foot messenger from the Duke of Salisbury and we writes: "Good evening yon Q and A. My question is directed towards the 'playwright' William Shakespeare. Did thee or did thee not really write and conceive all of those plays, sonnets and poems thyself, or did thou hav'st a ghost writing apprentice?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: As far as the east is from the west, I shalt swear on this land itself that I wrote every play, sonnet and poem, and every skerrick, iota and dot myself.
FRANCIS BACON: Swear thou mightst, for thou art adding lying to thievery.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: How dare you!
FRANCIS BACON: Audere est facere - to dare is to do.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Pay him no attention, for he is a cad and a bounder!
TONY JONES: I think we have a comment from Lord Sheffield.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: I quite like plays... and lashings of sack...
TONY JONES: I think we have had quite enough of Lord Sheffield at the moment...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Thank you...
FRANCIS BACON: This... William... is a lair of the most voracious kind. Most prudently he did not write every play, sonnet and poem, and every skerrick, iota and dot himself, for 'twas by my own pen that words doth flow, 'twixt the mind and the parchment. 'Twas mine eyes that saw these words doth form and dance upon the pages and 'twas my own mind which bore these words.
TONY JONES: We have a comment from the floor...
AUDIENCE: Why Mr Shakespeare will my children great and grand be forced to sit and study your texts?
TONY JONES: We take that as a comment...
JOHN DEE: Can I just say that it is reasonable for the King to employ players, wise men, armorists and alchemists as he sees fit? He is the King and has the Divine Right to do with His kingdom as he pleases.
TONY JONES: It looks as though we have a message brought to us via the medium of song, brought to us by the House of Lords own interns. They like to call their piece an Intern-ette.
HOUSE INTERNS: 'Twas long ago in days of old,
Whence men thought to turn lead to gold.
May what we ask from us to you,
Is can this task ever be true?
TONY JONES: I think that this question is best directed to John Dee don't you think?
JOHN DEE: Thank you.
TONY JONES: Er...
JOHN DEE: I do not view the world or its learnings as different pursuits, but all learnings as facets of the same enlightenment. All things both corporeal and ethereal have their being in the two realms of the visible and the invisible. Once one begins to understand the pure verities of the invisible and ethereal realm, I believe it will be possible to alter the qualities of a thing in the visible and corporeal realm.
TONY JONES: Do you think that it will be possible to turn lead into gold?
JOHN DEE: I can not see why not.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Jolly good...
GUY FAWKES: I have seen Lords who can turn large fortunes into little ones...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: I have seen potatoes...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: I have seen the world will end in fire, and the world end in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, to say that for destruction ice, is also great, and would suffice.
FRANCIS BACON: I bet thou stole that as well...
TONY JONES: I believe that we have a question from a lowly peasant on the floor, a Mr Peter McDow.
PETER McDOW: Ahem...
TONY JONES: Peter?...
PETER McDOW: Oh yes... Ahem... Mister Shakespeare, In your recent play "Othello the Moor", you cast both Moors and Catholics in a poor light. What do you really think about Moors and Catholics?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: I merely reflect the gaze of the people. I care not for the reflections therein...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: All Catholics are a nuisance and should be either shot, or rounded up and burned.
TONY JONES: Do you really believe that?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Of course!... them and the Jews, the Moors, the French, the Scots, all manner of street urchins and the poor... especially the poor. I would be happy if a great fire engulfed this City of London and burned all of the poor of this city to a crisp.
TONY JONES: That's a little harsh...
GUY FAWKES: It would be from one of whom poverty has never set foot on his doorstep.
TONY JONES: We have a question from the floor from a Mr Robert Catesby.
ROBERT CATESBY: Given the anti-Catholic sentiment in the last question, does anyone think that an attack on the King or Parliament may occur soon?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: God forbid such a thing to ever occur!
TONY JONES: But would it be technically possible?
JOHN DEE: I don't think a Lord with a great army could mount an attack on the Parliament in the streets, though a wise man might if he were studious, decide to deliver his terrible arsenal under cover of night fall.
TONY JONES: How so?
JOHN DEE: This great house of swill has a vast undercroft underneath it. If one could disguise gunpowder, masquerading of barrels of wine, then perhaps one could store thirty or fortyfold of barrels?
TONY JONES: We have a comment from Francis...
FRANCIS BACON: May I just say that printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.
TONY JONES: Can I just ask Guy... As a noted Catholic, you're not averse to controversy, what do you think of his theory?
GUY FAWKES: Remember, remember the First of November,
Accusatory firey and hot,
I see no reason, and certain no season,
To confirm or deny such a plot.
TONY JONES: Well I guess that you've heard it first here on Q and A, and what a poetic way to end the show. Tune in next week when we're off to the beach at Portsea where we'll hear from John McEwen, all star Doug Anthony, the PM Harold Holt, Lionel Murphy QC and Jim Cairns, provided that the Doctor shows up in his blue box on time again.
Remember that Q&A is live from 09.30 Eastern Time, so join the Twitter conversation by sending in your carrier pigeons, or mail us by hiring a herald and runner. But let's go to our very first question, which comes from Lord de Rouge from Didcott.
LORD DE ROUGE: Given the patronage of His Majesty of one particular theatre, does the panel feel that the arts generally shall suffer henceforth a hideous degradation?
TONY JONES: I think that we should hear from William on this first.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Prithee, shall I compare thee to a lady with birth pangs? There is wailing and much shouting, but whence the babe be born, a great celebration may be found amongst its family.
GUY FAWKES: You say that but you are the very one in receipt of poor a thousand crowns a year from the king's own purse.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Thou art a knave!
GUY FAWKES: Call me a knave again and a thousand times a knave, and yet thou are not fit to be even called a beggar.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: What is this nonsense?
GUY FAWKES: It is you and people like you, and indeed this great parliament who resides over in your own words "this realm, this land, this England", who beg for the King's shilling and marry get it, for thou art little more than a blaggard who dost sit at the end of the King's chamber and play for sport? No sir, thou playest for monies.
Even thy great theatre which thou call "the Globe", is not a globe but a temple to thy own self-aggrandising, and a coffin to thy spirit. Dost thou pay thy taxes as the peasant folk do? Not a bar of it. Not a bar. Thou dost not only withhold thy taxes but thou playest for monies from the peasantry who can ill-afford to surrender the bread from their table.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Prithee good sir, wouldst thou hold the wages back from a merchant? Consider this very frame upon which thy eyes are set and thou tongue which flashes quick against to be the very frame of a merchant who trades not in rude goods, but of wit, merriment and mirth. The theatre doth employ more than merely players but singers and minstrels, and magick men, and orators. Indeed this very House of Lords, be a theatre of our Lords and Masters, some of who derive their monies from oratory within this place.
TONY JONES: If we wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear Lord Sheffield's thoughts.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: What?...
TONY JONES: Do you think that the King favouring one theatre over another is a bad thing for the arts?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Well I... er... that is to say... it could very well be that if one thing leads to another thing that maybe... what?
TONY JONES: Do you think that the King is playing favourites?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: That is to say... I should jolly well hope so. He is the King.
TONY JONES: I think that we'll leave that question there. Our next question comes via a foot messenger from the Duke of Salisbury and we writes: "Good evening yon Q and A. My question is directed towards the 'playwright' William Shakespeare. Did thee or did thee not really write and conceive all of those plays, sonnets and poems thyself, or did thou hav'st a ghost writing apprentice?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: As far as the east is from the west, I shalt swear on this land itself that I wrote every play, sonnet and poem, and every skerrick, iota and dot myself.
FRANCIS BACON: Swear thou mightst, for thou art adding lying to thievery.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: How dare you!
FRANCIS BACON: Audere est facere - to dare is to do.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Pay him no attention, for he is a cad and a bounder!
TONY JONES: I think we have a comment from Lord Sheffield.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: I quite like plays... and lashings of sack...
TONY JONES: I think we have had quite enough of Lord Sheffield at the moment...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Thank you...
FRANCIS BACON: This... William... is a lair of the most voracious kind. Most prudently he did not write every play, sonnet and poem, and every skerrick, iota and dot himself, for 'twas by my own pen that words doth flow, 'twixt the mind and the parchment. 'Twas mine eyes that saw these words doth form and dance upon the pages and 'twas my own mind which bore these words.
TONY JONES: We have a comment from the floor...
AUDIENCE: Why Mr Shakespeare will my children great and grand be forced to sit and study your texts?
TONY JONES: We take that as a comment...
JOHN DEE: Can I just say that it is reasonable for the King to employ players, wise men, armorists and alchemists as he sees fit? He is the King and has the Divine Right to do with His kingdom as he pleases.
TONY JONES: It looks as though we have a message brought to us via the medium of song, brought to us by the House of Lords own interns. They like to call their piece an Intern-ette.
HOUSE INTERNS: 'Twas long ago in days of old,
Whence men thought to turn lead to gold.
May what we ask from us to you,
Is can this task ever be true?
TONY JONES: I think that this question is best directed to John Dee don't you think?
JOHN DEE: Thank you.
TONY JONES: Er...
JOHN DEE: I do not view the world or its learnings as different pursuits, but all learnings as facets of the same enlightenment. All things both corporeal and ethereal have their being in the two realms of the visible and the invisible. Once one begins to understand the pure verities of the invisible and ethereal realm, I believe it will be possible to alter the qualities of a thing in the visible and corporeal realm.
TONY JONES: Do you think that it will be possible to turn lead into gold?
JOHN DEE: I can not see why not.
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Jolly good...
GUY FAWKES: I have seen Lords who can turn large fortunes into little ones...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: I have seen potatoes...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: I have seen the world will end in fire, and the world end in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, to say that for destruction ice, is also great, and would suffice.
FRANCIS BACON: I bet thou stole that as well...
TONY JONES: I believe that we have a question from a lowly peasant on the floor, a Mr Peter McDow.
PETER McDOW: Ahem...
TONY JONES: Peter?...
PETER McDOW: Oh yes... Ahem... Mister Shakespeare, In your recent play "Othello the Moor", you cast both Moors and Catholics in a poor light. What do you really think about Moors and Catholics?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: I merely reflect the gaze of the people. I care not for the reflections therein...
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: All Catholics are a nuisance and should be either shot, or rounded up and burned.
TONY JONES: Do you really believe that?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: Of course!... them and the Jews, the Moors, the French, the Scots, all manner of street urchins and the poor... especially the poor. I would be happy if a great fire engulfed this City of London and burned all of the poor of this city to a crisp.
TONY JONES: That's a little harsh...
GUY FAWKES: It would be from one of whom poverty has never set foot on his doorstep.
TONY JONES: We have a question from the floor from a Mr Robert Catesby.
ROBERT CATESBY: Given the anti-Catholic sentiment in the last question, does anyone think that an attack on the King or Parliament may occur soon?
EDMUND SHEFFIELD: God forbid such a thing to ever occur!
TONY JONES: But would it be technically possible?
JOHN DEE: I don't think a Lord with a great army could mount an attack on the Parliament in the streets, though a wise man might if he were studious, decide to deliver his terrible arsenal under cover of night fall.
TONY JONES: How so?
JOHN DEE: This great house of swill has a vast undercroft underneath it. If one could disguise gunpowder, masquerading of barrels of wine, then perhaps one could store thirty or fortyfold of barrels?
TONY JONES: We have a comment from Francis...
FRANCIS BACON: May I just say that printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.
TONY JONES: Can I just ask Guy... As a noted Catholic, you're not averse to controversy, what do you think of his theory?
GUY FAWKES: Remember, remember the First of November,
Accusatory firey and hot,
I see no reason, and certain no season,
To confirm or deny such a plot.
TONY JONES: Well I guess that you've heard it first here on Q and A, and what a poetic way to end the show. Tune in next week when we're off to the beach at Portsea where we'll hear from John McEwen, all star Doug Anthony, the PM Harold Holt, Lionel Murphy QC and Jim Cairns, provided that the Doctor shows up in his blue box on time again.
October 29, 2010
Horse 1123 - "New Paradigm"? I certainly didn't see it.
The words "new paradigm" were thrown about on the floors of both houses of parliament yesterday as though we'd entered some strange new world of politics, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that there are very few people alive who would remember the turbulent parliaments before the Great War.
Up until the hearing deficient Billy Hughes took office in 1915, the Premiership changed hands nine times; most of those were because the government of the day wasn't able to either pass legislation because it didn't have command of the house. This so called "new paradigm" isn't therefore new at all, but dates back almost 30 years before even the birth of the current Father of the House, Phillip Ruddock.
It has only been since about the time of Charles Grey in 1830, that Westminster Parliaments generally have had stable party systems, and certainly nothing like the system of whips and caucuses which exist today. If you bear this in mind, it might be a little easier to understand the current situation we currently have today.
Essentially this is a numbers game. The current rainbow coalition of Labor, a Green and four indies only just falls over the magical line of 76 seats. It is still theoretically possible for the Liberal-National coalition plus a WA National and only three indies to force a no-confidence motion and force a change of government. Provided a no-confidence motion was tabled before the house, then a change of government could be forced even without the need to call an election.
The other possible scenario is that a supply bill (ie the Federal Budget) could be either defeated in the Lower or the Upper House. If this was the case then government would not be able to function and a fresh election would be called. Again this has also happened in Australian politics, most famously in 1975.
Really there is no "new paradigm" not matter how hard Senator Joyce chooses to yell it from the floor of the Senate. The truth is that the Australian Parliament has already been here before and has come out the other side. Perhaps it's just something fun to say of you happen to be a politician... who knows nothing of political history.
Up until the hearing deficient Billy Hughes took office in 1915, the Premiership changed hands nine times; most of those were because the government of the day wasn't able to either pass legislation because it didn't have command of the house. This so called "new paradigm" isn't therefore new at all, but dates back almost 30 years before even the birth of the current Father of the House, Phillip Ruddock.
It has only been since about the time of Charles Grey in 1830, that Westminster Parliaments generally have had stable party systems, and certainly nothing like the system of whips and caucuses which exist today. If you bear this in mind, it might be a little easier to understand the current situation we currently have today.
Essentially this is a numbers game. The current rainbow coalition of Labor, a Green and four indies only just falls over the magical line of 76 seats. It is still theoretically possible for the Liberal-National coalition plus a WA National and only three indies to force a no-confidence motion and force a change of government. Provided a no-confidence motion was tabled before the house, then a change of government could be forced even without the need to call an election.
The other possible scenario is that a supply bill (ie the Federal Budget) could be either defeated in the Lower or the Upper House. If this was the case then government would not be able to function and a fresh election would be called. Again this has also happened in Australian politics, most famously in 1975.
Really there is no "new paradigm" not matter how hard Senator Joyce chooses to yell it from the floor of the Senate. The truth is that the Australian Parliament has already been here before and has come out the other side. Perhaps it's just something fun to say of you happen to be a politician... who knows nothing of political history.
October 28, 2010
Horse 1122 - I Hate Halloween
(elements of this have been sporked from elsewhere)
I really hate halloween... no scratch that... I really really really hate halloween.
The truth is that I already don't like most of the children in my immediate neighbourhood. Some of them within earshot spend their entire lives from what I can gather, screaming and crying at the top of their lungs either at each other or at their poor frazzled parents.
Why then do I need them showing up at my door and demanding sweets? What would happen for instance if I were to walk 9 doors up the street and ask for lollies? People would think that I'm insane, and then probably ring up some gentlemen in blue to take me away in a fun car with flashing lights.
Miranda Devine in today's Daily Telegraph writes:
http://www.news.com.au/opinion/miranda-devine-asks-why-are-all-men-made-to-feel-like-fiends/story-e6frfs99-1225944489870
In 100 different ways every day the same scenario is played out, reflecting a profound and largely unspoken shift in the way decent men view small children.
These are just ordinary men, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, who have been made to feel like criminals around children and obliged to suppress their natural, healthy instinct to protect the most vulnerable members of our society.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be portrayed as some criminal pervert paedophiles. I certainly don't want children showing up at my door just to invite the suggestion. In fact if it came to it, I'd rather be known as a paedophobe; that way the sweet seeking sprogs would scavenge, sally and sortie somewhere else.
No sir, I don't like Halloween, or as it properly should be called "Scab Day" and nor should anyone else. No-one in their right might would vote for a "National Annoy The Crap Out Of Your Neighbours Day" would they? Then why send your kiddies out to do it for you?
Really the only people who actually benefit from it are the sweet manufacturers Messers Cadbury, Nestlé, et al. who have used this fake holiday to foist the sale of their diabetic inducing produce onto the public.
In yesterday's Age in Melbourne there was an article looking at the failure of programs to curb childhood obesity:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/child-obesity-a-losing-battle-20101025-170ya.html
The evidence from the fat battlefront so far shows that many schemes by federal and state governments to prevent childhood obesity have failed to make a significant dent in the girths of young Australians, Productivity Commission researchers have found.
Their report assesses 27 child and student-focused anti-obesity programs whose aims include promoting exercise, improving diet and cutting time spent in front of television and computer screens.
Can I just add a 28th anti-obesity program here? Don't send out increasingly corpulent children out to collect lollies and sweets! When I was a kid in school there was usually one fat kid per class, just one. I think that schools must have had some sort of allocation program to allocate fat kids. Now it seems that every class has more than just the odd fat kid but loads of them. Is that why teachers unions are calling for smaller class sizes? When I was a kid, classes of 34 weren't uncommon. Do 34 kids then equal 24 kids now?
There are theories that halloween started off as something a lot less sweet based. In 16th Century Scotland during the older "All-Hallows-Even", traditionally people would go from door-to-door, dressed up, and then telling jokes or even dancing to get something from their neighbours.
Anyway the upshot is, if children want sweets from me this year, they better be ready to dance for them. It will give me a reason to dress up as an organ grinder and madly yell "Dance! Dance my pretties! Dance for your sweeties! I'm gonna get you, and you're little dog too!". Then throw their reward at their feet so I can laugh malevolently as they scramble around like the pathetic sugar laden terrors they are.
Better yet, make their parents dance. That way the kids will cry and blame their parents for not loving them enough. And thus the cycle continues, children screaming and crying at the top of their lungs either at each other or at their poor frazzled parents.
October 27, 2010
Horse 1121 - The "Christian Right" has Might?
I was listening to NPR this morning (on one of those occasions when they were talking about artistic arrangements of spoons and whatnot) and they were talking to one of their political editors in Washington. Intruguingly, the comment was made that the "Christian Right" still have a considerable influence in Washington. Yet somehow I really wonder if this is in fact the case.
If I compare this comment to the Australian experience, where the Christian Democratic Party, the Democratic Labor Party and the Family First Party account for about maybe 6% of the primary vote at best, is that really any sway at all?
Admittedly the United States is decidedly more open about religion than impassive Australia is but when you figure that actual regular church attendance in the US is only about 9%, how exactly does this relay into "considerable influence in Washington"? Or is this just rhetoric employed to sucker dim-witted Christians into voting for the major parties?
From the outset the First Amendment to the US Constitution states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;. Whilst this doesn't prevent the establishment of openly Christian political parties, the overall tone of the polity is that there should be a separation of church and state and this is stated almost to the point of violent bluntness. If anyone actually tried to set up an openly Christian political party in the US, would they be hounded down until their voice was extinguished?
I suspect that because of this, any Christian element in politics in the US has to somehow worm its way into the caucii of the GoP and the Democrats. If their say in both of those parties is the same as their say in the real world, then proportionally they should have a say of no more than about... 9%.
9% of the vote isn't enough to change policy at all; if you couple this with the fact that voting is a) not compulsory and b) there is actually a system of registration for which political party you happen to side with, I wonder if this would lead to the actual influence of Christian politics in the United States as being something nearer to 4% or 3%.
This is actually a strange paradigm when you consider that in the recent past, the loudest political voices are those do to with the issues of abortion and gay marriage. As Proposition 8 proved, even if you do have a broadly Christian viewpoint on anything, there are still louder voices and the government itself who are able to manipulate policy far better than the Christian element does.
Out of all this, I wonder whether or not the "Christian Right" has an influence at all in Washington, let alone a considerable one. Certainly the outcomes of policy like invading Iraq under the premise of a lie, holding people without trial for several years and the general hatred brewing about Muslims is certainly un-Christian.
Maybe the considerable influence in Washington that the "Christian Right" has is something more mundane... like baking scones or something?
If I compare this comment to the Australian experience, where the Christian Democratic Party, the Democratic Labor Party and the Family First Party account for about maybe 6% of the primary vote at best, is that really any sway at all?
Admittedly the United States is decidedly more open about religion than impassive Australia is but when you figure that actual regular church attendance in the US is only about 9%, how exactly does this relay into "considerable influence in Washington"? Or is this just rhetoric employed to sucker dim-witted Christians into voting for the major parties?
From the outset the First Amendment to the US Constitution states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;. Whilst this doesn't prevent the establishment of openly Christian political parties, the overall tone of the polity is that there should be a separation of church and state and this is stated almost to the point of violent bluntness. If anyone actually tried to set up an openly Christian political party in the US, would they be hounded down until their voice was extinguished?
I suspect that because of this, any Christian element in politics in the US has to somehow worm its way into the caucii of the GoP and the Democrats. If their say in both of those parties is the same as their say in the real world, then proportionally they should have a say of no more than about... 9%.
9% of the vote isn't enough to change policy at all; if you couple this with the fact that voting is a) not compulsory and b) there is actually a system of registration for which political party you happen to side with, I wonder if this would lead to the actual influence of Christian politics in the United States as being something nearer to 4% or 3%.
This is actually a strange paradigm when you consider that in the recent past, the loudest political voices are those do to with the issues of abortion and gay marriage. As Proposition 8 proved, even if you do have a broadly Christian viewpoint on anything, there are still louder voices and the government itself who are able to manipulate policy far better than the Christian element does.
Out of all this, I wonder whether or not the "Christian Right" has an influence at all in Washington, let alone a considerable one. Certainly the outcomes of policy like invading Iraq under the premise of a lie, holding people without trial for several years and the general hatred brewing about Muslims is certainly un-Christian.
Maybe the considerable influence in Washington that the "Christian Right" has is something more mundane... like baking scones or something?
October 25, 2010
Horse 1120 - Murdoch and the BBC
I'm afraid that it's just like old times again. Not content with destroying British industry to the point where it won't function again properly, the last time they were is office, the ****ing Tories have already started on their long term goals of hurting the BBC and ultimately selling it.
When David Cameron became Prime Minister as a result of forming a coalition with the Lib Dems, it may as well have been the magistrate signing a death warrant for the Beeb. Quite frankly it is disgusting that the very first person to go to Number 10 to meet with David Cameron after he became PM was none other Rupert Murdoch. There's nothing like a bit of nepotism is there?
It was Murdoch's newspapers who openly backed the Conservatives; even the chief political editor of News International in London Newton Dunn had this to say:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/04/murdoch-biographer-sun-editor
The question is, how do you bring down an organisation like the BBC. As an established media outlet, it is heralded the world over for its reportage in often dangerous places. Within the UK it runs four national television stations, nine national radio stations, and lots of regional media outlets. As far as production of media content goes, it is second to none. So then, how do you hurt the BBC? By striking it directly in the hip pocket.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/19/bbc-licence-fee-frozen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/18/bbc-coalition-licence-fee-raid
The BBC is an almost independant quango. It raises its own funds through the instrument called the licence fee. People who own a television currently pay £145.50 per year to fund the BBC, and in return they get arguably the finest media organisation in the world.
The BBC itself presents a very real problem for News Ltd. Rupert Murdoch has been complaining for years that the BBC's mere existance robs him of his precious profits, and now that he's backed the Tories in the media (and probably with cash behind closed doors), he and people like him will begin to make the institution suffer which will only get worse and probably lead to the government selling it off (that and the NHS if they can ruin that as well). By cutting the BBC's funding off, firstly by limiting the licence fee, it would then justify "dropping" it as they did with the ABC in Australia, and once the BBC is firmly living in the government's pocket, it then isn't much of a stretch to justify selling it.
What I find particularly hypocritical about News Ltd was these comments he made:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11594936
"A free society needed an independent press"? Really? So let me get this straight, if you remove the biggest organisation with a broadly leftist viewpoint, then society would become more free because the remaining "independent press" is all broadly rightist? Does this work in practice?
In Australia we only have two large newspaper organisations; those being News Ltd. and Fairfax. Both of those groups are nominally centre-right newspapers and in places like Adelaide and Brisbane, Fairfax doesn't even run a large scale newspaper.
I really wonder what Rupert means by serving "the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted". Does he mean to say that it serves "the interests of the powerful" ie. him, if the BBC was muted? Also I failt to see how replacing very loud voices such as News Ltd with "bloggers and bloviators" makes society less free. When you consider that in 1920 Australia had 26 metropolitan dailies with 21 independent proprietors, and now has 10 metropolitan dailies with only 2 independent proprietors, can you really say that society was less free in 1920? Likewise in the UK, if the BBC is muted, who do you think is going to move into the void? Would it be Fox News? I sincerly hope not.
One thing that the world does not need is the removal of public broadcasting. The further we move down that road, the more we become like the American market; and the American news market which is mainly dominated by Fox News, has created a nation of really pathetically stupid and insular people. Then again I suppose that's what Mr Murdoch wants, isn't it? A world full of pathetically stupid and insular people who continue to put cash through the till.
When David Cameron became Prime Minister as a result of forming a coalition with the Lib Dems, it may as well have been the magistrate signing a death warrant for the Beeb. Quite frankly it is disgusting that the very first person to go to Number 10 to meet with David Cameron after he became PM was none other Rupert Murdoch. There's nothing like a bit of nepotism is there?
It was Murdoch's newspapers who openly backed the Conservatives; even the chief political editor of News International in London Newton Dunn had this to say:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/04/murdoch-biographer-sun-editor
"It is my job to see that Cameron fucking well gets into Downing Street," proclaimed Tom Newton Dunn, political editor of the Sun, to a group of journalists from rival papers, recently.
The question is, how do you bring down an organisation like the BBC. As an established media outlet, it is heralded the world over for its reportage in often dangerous places. Within the UK it runs four national television stations, nine national radio stations, and lots of regional media outlets. As far as production of media content goes, it is second to none. So then, how do you hurt the BBC? By striking it directly in the hip pocket.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/19/bbc-licence-fee-frozen
The BBC licence fee is to be frozen at the current level of £145.50 for the next six years, a 16% cut in real terms, after the corporation today concluded a bruising round of funding negotiations with the coalition government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/18/bbc-coalition-licence-fee-raid
BBC bosses fear that the coalition government is gearing up for a £500m-plus raid on the licence fee, by forcing the broadcaster to meet the full cost of free television licences for the over 75s.
The benefit – which was introduced by Gordon Brown when he was chancellor – costs £556m, and is currently paid for out of general taxation. But ministers are considering passing the bill on to the BBC as part of this week's comprehensive spending review.The BBC is an almost independant quango. It raises its own funds through the instrument called the licence fee. People who own a television currently pay £145.50 per year to fund the BBC, and in return they get arguably the finest media organisation in the world.
The BBC itself presents a very real problem for News Ltd. Rupert Murdoch has been complaining for years that the BBC's mere existance robs him of his precious profits, and now that he's backed the Tories in the media (and probably with cash behind closed doors), he and people like him will begin to make the institution suffer which will only get worse and probably lead to the government selling it off (that and the NHS if they can ruin that as well). By cutting the BBC's funding off, firstly by limiting the licence fee, it would then justify "dropping" it as they did with the ABC in Australia, and once the BBC is firmly living in the government's pocket, it then isn't much of a stretch to justify selling it.
What I find particularly hypocritical about News Ltd was these comments he made:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11594936
Mr Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns the Times, the Sun and Sky News, among other media outlets, also said a free society needed an independent press, adding it would "serve the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted, or replaced as navigators in our society by bloggers and bloviators".
"A free society needed an independent press"? Really? So let me get this straight, if you remove the biggest organisation with a broadly leftist viewpoint, then society would become more free because the remaining "independent press" is all broadly rightist? Does this work in practice?
In Australia we only have two large newspaper organisations; those being News Ltd. and Fairfax. Both of those groups are nominally centre-right newspapers and in places like Adelaide and Brisbane, Fairfax doesn't even run a large scale newspaper.
I really wonder what Rupert means by serving "the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted". Does he mean to say that it serves "the interests of the powerful" ie. him, if the BBC was muted? Also I failt to see how replacing very loud voices such as News Ltd with "bloggers and bloviators" makes society less free. When you consider that in 1920 Australia had 26 metropolitan dailies with 21 independent proprietors, and now has 10 metropolitan dailies with only 2 independent proprietors, can you really say that society was less free in 1920? Likewise in the UK, if the BBC is muted, who do you think is going to move into the void? Would it be Fox News? I sincerly hope not.
One thing that the world does not need is the removal of public broadcasting. The further we move down that road, the more we become like the American market; and the American news market which is mainly dominated by Fox News, has created a nation of really pathetically stupid and insular people. Then again I suppose that's what Mr Murdoch wants, isn't it? A world full of pathetically stupid and insular people who continue to put cash through the till.
October 22, 2010
Horse 1119 - Happiness is No Frills Orange
Something to drink is all I ask for. It's not a very difficult request, or is it?
Perhaps you'd like to try a simple experiment. Just go to your local supermarket and see if you can buy a single serve drink, that isn't either an energy drink or a +500mL bottle.
This leads me to an interesting question: Are our lives really that tiring that we either need to be wired up on caffeine or sugar? Why do we need so much liquid that we're forced to wee half an hour later? This is related to but not quite the same as the great Starbucks question of "why do we actually need a whole pint of scalding, flavoured liquid?"
375mL cans used to be easy to find on supermarket shelves. Granted, they still are there but now they only come in boxes of 10, 12, 18, 24, 30! When will the madness stop? Likewise if you do happen to find a can of drink in the supermarket, it's likely to be an "energy drink" of some sort (either V, Red Bull or Mother) and worse, the 250mL cans are disappearing and were starting to see 500mL cans appear in their place.
All of this makes me think two things which are complementary to each other.
Firstly, caffeine itself is a diuretic which means that it actually forces the production of urine. This means that a while after you've drunk something, that you'll have to take a wee somewhere, and thus require another drink sooner. Quite deliberately, this begins a faster wee-drink-wee-drink cycle, which results in higher profits for the drink manufacturers.
Secondly because is a psychoactive stimulant drug, it's also mildly addictive. The British Journal of Addiction concluded that caffeinism (if that's a word) affects 1 in 10 people but probably is only diagnosed in about 1 in 10,000.
These two things taken together mean that you have a product which is both addictive and forces self-promotion.
Going back to my original tag line that "Happiness is No Frills Orange", No Frills Orange drink from Franklins contains zero caffeine and therefore doesn't produce the negative effects mentioned above and because it's only 375mL, it won't force you to wee half an hour later. The other benefit is that it only costs 49 cents, which means that you can get five or six of them for the same price as Energy Wee-A-Lot drinks.
Perhaps you'd like to try a simple experiment. Just go to your local supermarket and see if you can buy a single serve drink, that isn't either an energy drink or a +500mL bottle.
This leads me to an interesting question: Are our lives really that tiring that we either need to be wired up on caffeine or sugar? Why do we need so much liquid that we're forced to wee half an hour later? This is related to but not quite the same as the great Starbucks question of "why do we actually need a whole pint of scalding, flavoured liquid?"
375mL cans used to be easy to find on supermarket shelves. Granted, they still are there but now they only come in boxes of 10, 12, 18, 24, 30! When will the madness stop? Likewise if you do happen to find a can of drink in the supermarket, it's likely to be an "energy drink" of some sort (either V, Red Bull or Mother) and worse, the 250mL cans are disappearing and were starting to see 500mL cans appear in their place.
All of this makes me think two things which are complementary to each other.
Firstly, caffeine itself is a diuretic which means that it actually forces the production of urine. This means that a while after you've drunk something, that you'll have to take a wee somewhere, and thus require another drink sooner. Quite deliberately, this begins a faster wee-drink-wee-drink cycle, which results in higher profits for the drink manufacturers.
Secondly because is a psychoactive stimulant drug, it's also mildly addictive. The British Journal of Addiction concluded that caffeinism (if that's a word) affects 1 in 10 people but probably is only diagnosed in about 1 in 10,000.
These two things taken together mean that you have a product which is both addictive and forces self-promotion.
Going back to my original tag line that "Happiness is No Frills Orange", No Frills Orange drink from Franklins contains zero caffeine and therefore doesn't produce the negative effects mentioned above and because it's only 375mL, it won't force you to wee half an hour later. The other benefit is that it only costs 49 cents, which means that you can get five or six of them for the same price as Energy Wee-A-Lot drinks.
October 21, 2010
Horse 1118 - Risky Business.
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead!
Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
- Coldplay, Viva La Vida
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead!
Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
- Coldplay, Viva La Vida
History is one giant game of Risk. Various empires have sprung up and fallen, and the main reason why no-one has ever been entirely successful is that the world is simply to vast and unwieldy to take on all at once. To put it more succinctly, as that great sage BJD once said "Don't spread yourself too thin"
If you look at the truly great empires of history, then India, China, Egypt, the Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, and even the Spanish, French and Soviets have only ever managed to occupy 6 territories at most. Even the US currently only owns two and hasn't really conquered a third. This leaves only four empires in history worth discussing, and even then only one has made a significant tilt at the board.
Greece - 3
The most that the Greek Empire ever achieved was three territories. Those being Southern Europe, Egypt and the Middle East. For this reason, Greece was always bound to fail. Admittedly they did try to push into India, but it was successful. The point is that you can't defend 3 territories with seven borders, and so the Greeks faded into history.
The Romans - 7
The Roman Empire for all it was worth, even at its most extant under Hadrian, still only managed to acquire seven territories. Those being Southern Europe, Egypt and the Middle East, North Africa, Western Europe, Northern Europe and Great Britain. The Romans again made the same mistake as the Greeks, 7 territories with eight borders.
The Roman Empire did make another mistake however, if they'd concentrated on Europe, they may have been able to pick up the continent bonus of five armies.
Britain - 10.
Britain was an empire upon which "the sun never set". Even so it only managed to hold 10 territories: Great Britain, Alberta, Eastern United States, Northwest Territory, Ontario, Quebec, South Africa, India, Eastern Australia, Western Australia.
Ten territories is a good effort but again, it still isn't even good enough to gain an extra bonus army for having sufficient territories. They came tanalisingly close with holding North America, but negelected to conquer Central America, Alaska or Greenland.
The Third Reich - 3
This blog post invokes Godwin's Law by mentioning Hitler but more importantly, why he failed.
Hitler should have known that you only get a continent bonus by taking a whole continent. He gave up on attacking Great Britain, failed in taking the Ukraine, didn't conquer Scandinavia and didn't even reach Iceland.
Hitler should have realised that Europe is a difficult place to start from. Furthermore, the United States, Canada and Britain who actually did move troops through Iceland, would always "break out" into Western Europe, and with the Soviets on the other side, Hitler didn't stand a chance.
Logically the only nation in the world with any real chance as far as I can see is possibly Australia. They own both Eastern Australia and Western Australia. The big problem is New Guinea which is difficult to navigate and a big blob on Indonesia, and then the two vast countries of China and India. Anyone who cab break out of Oceania usually stands a good chance of doing well; although keeping and holding Asia is a massive task, provided you can do it, there is a continent bonus of eight armies, and you would have lots of troops from turning in cards as well.
If only...
October 15, 2010
Horse 1117 - As Wacky as Tom Cruze
Some very strange things are happening at this moment.
I read at The Motor Report, that:
"Holden has today announced the opening of its new body shop at its Elizabeth plant in Adelaide, commissioned to produce panels for the locally-built 2011 Holden Cruze sedan."
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/50949/holden-cruze-production-plant-opens-at-elizabeth
I even checked the Holden website to see if they had any official announcements on it. Curiously the Holden website itself appears to be down, which I can only assume is because they intend to get some massive fanfare out of this.
Admittedly I don't much like the Cruze. It's an unengaging car to drive and currently the cars that we get from Incheon in South Korea are a little bit lacking in the quality department. Somehow the i30 and i20 from Hyundai and dare I say it Kia's Cerato are actually better built.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/holden-opens-new-cruze-bodyshop-20101013-16imy.html
The company on Wednesday opened the new facility at its Elizabeth plant which was developed with the help of a $149 million commitment from the federal government. It will be used to make panels and other parts for the new car which will be produced alongside Holden's existing Commodore range and go on sale early next year.
The new model gives the company more scope to tailor production volumes to meet changing consumer demands and follows a recent decision to reintroduce a second shift at Elizabeth from November and add 50 jobs.
But the SMH gave us a little clue that something might be different:
This photograph shows not the sedan but a hatchback. That in itself might be significant as currently as far as I'm aware, the Cruze is not sold as a hatchback in any market. If this is the case, then Holden may have themselves a car for export and perhaps keep the Australian manufacturing firm going a little longer than it otherwise would have done.
The ABC it appears may have bished though, the following photo appears with this caption:
No Aunty... those are Commodore panels, and in the background they're Commodore Sportwagon panels. Sorry, I'm not a motoring writer but even I can tell the difference.
I read at The Motor Report, that:
"Holden has today announced the opening of its new body shop at its Elizabeth plant in Adelaide, commissioned to produce panels for the locally-built 2011 Holden Cruze sedan."
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/50949/holden-cruze-production-plant-opens-at-elizabeth
I even checked the Holden website to see if they had any official announcements on it. Curiously the Holden website itself appears to be down, which I can only assume is because they intend to get some massive fanfare out of this.
Admittedly I don't much like the Cruze. It's an unengaging car to drive and currently the cars that we get from Incheon in South Korea are a little bit lacking in the quality department. Somehow the i30 and i20 from Hyundai and dare I say it Kia's Cerato are actually better built.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/holden-opens-new-cruze-bodyshop-20101013-16imy.html
The company on Wednesday opened the new facility at its Elizabeth plant which was developed with the help of a $149 million commitment from the federal government. It will be used to make panels and other parts for the new car which will be produced alongside Holden's existing Commodore range and go on sale early next year.
The new model gives the company more scope to tailor production volumes to meet changing consumer demands and follows a recent decision to reintroduce a second shift at Elizabeth from November and add 50 jobs.
But the SMH gave us a little clue that something might be different:
The ABC it appears may have bished though, the following photo appears with this caption:
A Holden Cruze under assembly on the new production line at the Elizabeth plant in Adelaide. (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/13/3037117.htm?section=businessNo Aunty... those are Commodore panels, and in the background they're Commodore Sportwagon panels. Sorry, I'm not a motoring writer but even I can tell the difference.
October 12, 2010
Horse 1116 - EA Politik '11 - It's In The Game
EA Sports - It's in the Game.
I'm eagerly looking forward to Politik '11 because the last version of the game that I have is only Politik 03.
Back in Politik '03, the biggest challenge was how to win in Australia with Mark Latham as leader of the Labor Party. I always found that you could usually win a few seats in NSW but ultimately, the "who can you trust?" campaign usually shot you out of the water.
I didn't get Politik '09 but that came with the bonus G.F.C puzzle and the whole stimulus package thing. If you selected Obama you could usually scrape a win in Major League Politics and win Presidency but then you'd find that there'd be all of these little Tea Party things which would ruin your win.
Politik '11 comes with the new features of trying to negotiate a hung parliament and a Great Big New Carbon Tax, and I even found a bonus game in which you could throw crocodiles on the roof of your house. Not that it achieves much but it is wacky.
It also comes with some new add-ons like "Question Time" in the UK, "QandA" in Australia and some sort of "Fox News" thing which I still can't make heads nor tails of in the US.
I have found that if you play the European Parliament Cup, you can actually win MEP seats through little more than blatant racism.
There is one critical error with Politik '11 though. If you pick the LibDems in the UK, for some reason after the election you instantly disappear and a Tory wins office. Also, I picked Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour party, and he was instantly deleted after the election and there appears to be a fault because two identical Millibands appear from nowhere.
I hope that they fix those errors for Politik '12. Hopefully they'll put in a no-confidence option in the Oz League so you can boot the Gillard Government and put in Wayne Swan in as PM. This Abbot option is pretty useless, but it's better than selecting Hockey and Joyce in as the opposition.
October 11, 2010
Horse 1115 - Oh Mr Beecher What Have You Done?
Oh, Mr. Beecher what have you done?
There once were lots of things to read, but soon there will be none,
I'll have to buy a book, 'cause I can not buy The Star,
Oh, Mr. Beecher what a nutty man you are!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/crikey-publisher-eric-beecher-lashes-the-abc/story-e6frg996-1225936854078
CRIKEY publisher Eric Beecher has attacked the ABC's for branching into online commentary in competition with websites such as his own.
The comments coincide with debates in countries such as Britain and Germany, as well as other parts of the European Union, about whether the activity of publicly funded broadcasters in channels such as the internet should be limited so as not to "unnecessarily damage" commercial competitors.
And it follows pressure on the traditional audiences and advertising revenues of commercial media operators in most mature media markets following the rise of online competitors.
"As a huge supporter of the ABC, I have been somewhat shocked at (the ABC's) decision to create a website (The Drum) that sits so blatantly in the territory of sites like Crikey and The Punch," Mr Beecher said.
"Operating in the commercial space, we expect vigorous competition from other commercial publishers. But to see the ABC tanks roll up on our lawn was bewildering."
GROW UP... You're not nine years old. For goodness sake, take a concrete pill and harden up. (Add appropriate profanities for emphasis).
Media in Australia has already disappeared up it's own fundamental orephus quite some time ago. There are very few if any at all, independant voices in print media in this country.
Of the major circulating newspapers in all capital cities, there are really only two major media groups and they are Fairfax and News Ltd. In suburban media they might hide under the banners of Rural Press Ltd or the Cumberland Newspaper Group etc, but scrape away the shell companies and you are still left with Fairfax and News Ltd.
This means that if you are looking for independant journalism and comment, you need to look online since the big fish have already eaten all of the little ones. To be fair Crikey is indpendant but The Punch sits squarely in the News Ltd. basket.
Both Fairfax and News Ltd are rightist and broadly conservative news organisations. News Ltd even goes so far as openly backing political parties in various countries to shift public opinion if it suits its own ends. It is so bad in the United States that Fox News Channel is virtually devoid of anything other than conservative lackies yelling at so called "liberals" who are basically set up as straw men; I really hope that we never see the likes of that in Australia because its just so mind numbingly puerile.
There are five newspapers which hold 95% of the market in Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald (which is conservative and rightist), The Financial Review (which is conservative and rightist), The Australian (which is conservative and rightist), The Daily Telegraph (which is popularist and rightist), and the free newspaper at city railway stations MX which as far as I can tell is the place where News Ltd. puts all its pictures of scantily clad women that it couldn't put in The Daily Telegraph. I don't really know if it's conservative and rightist having never bothered to pick up more than two copies of the insipid thing (it isn't even worth giving away), but I imagine that it probably is.
In the light of a broadly conservative and rightist media market, is it little wonder that Beecher should make comments such as these:
"It is full of personal opinions, mainly from the Left and often wacky, which is something that sits uncomfortably with the notion of a rigorously independent publicly funded national broadcaster.
"In doing this, it unnecessarily but almost provocatively reinforces the fairly widespread perceptions of where the ABC and its journalists sit in the political spectrum.
How about we flip this back onto both Beecher and The Australian who published this article?
In doing this, it unnecessarily but almost provocatively reinforces the fairly widespread perceptions of where both Crikey, Fairfax and News Ltd's journalists sit in the political spectrum.
If you can find a discrepancy, then I'd like to hear about it.I would just like to see what they'd all think of Paris' media. Le Monde is left of centre, Le Figaro says that it is a centre-right newspaper but works out to be far further to the right than that, France Soir is a populist and centrist paper, La Croix tries to be neither left or right but is blatantly Roman Catholic, Le Manifeste is openly communist, La Tribune is staunchly capitalist... and that's just in Paris, that doesn't say anything about the rest of France, whose newspapers are a kaliedoscope of political flavours and colours.
Parisian media benefits from having lots of different sorts of voices being published. Paris itself is a far more vibrant and alive city, partly because the culture of which the media is a part, allows more experimentation and a greater flow of ideas to be exchanged.
Sydney (and by extension Australia) is a cultural vaccuum in which there are only a few select and very loud voices, and those voices happen to be for a very large part, boorish, pathetic and greedy.
"I can now fully understand why the BBC has limited its online activities, especially in the commentary arena," he said of Britain's state-owned broadcaster pulling back on its domestic online footprint.
In August, the BBC promised to "cut its footprint on the web" and "exit some editorial areas entirely" as the Conservative government flagged measures to protect private enterprise from the dominance of the BBC.
I can also under understand why the BBC has limited its online activities. A new Conservative government was elected with backing from the same media interests who are complaining about the BBC. Those same media interests also happen to be broadly the same interests who are whinging about our ABC.
(Actually it was both Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch who went on the attack of the BBC)
News Ltd even went so far as to establish a pay wall around its news websites because of dwindling revenues. Of course this creates a conundrum. If I can not access something because it sits behind a pay wall (and believe me, the sort of crap which sits behind certainly isn't worrth paying a subscription fee for), then what right do they have to complain if I go somewhere else?
Is this a free speech issue? If people/companies have the rights to free speech, then surely as a consumer I have the right to select where I get that free speech from. If Crikey, Fairfax and News Ltd don't wish to put forward a leftist viewpoint and I want to consume it, then surely I have the right to find someone who will.
If the national broadcaster is acting as a marketplace for "personal opinions, mainly from the Left and often wacky" then at very least those personal, Left and wacky opinions have a home and place to go to, because if Crikey, Fairfax and News Ltd don't give voice to them, then they go unheard.
Basically Eric Beecher, News Ltd and Fairfax have seen new markets open up and want to exclude the public broadcasters whereever possible from impinging on their precious profits. Really that is the only quibble that they have. Since as economist Adam Smith said that "everyone is motivated by his or her own self-interest" then what other possible issue could they be crying foul about?
Someone needs to give Eric Beecher, News Ltd and Fairfax a swift kick up the date to disodge their heads which have been firmly jammed up there for so long. Give Aunty and her followers the right to bang a Drum, because when it comes down to it, unless there's a profit in it Beecher and his whinging mates aint interested.
October 07, 2010
Horse 1114 - The Referee IS Always Right
- Shane Perkins: being an idiot.
http://www.news.com.au/anna-meares-and-shane-perkins-go-for-gold-at-delhi-velodrome/story-fn65k7vp-1225935055754- Photo stolen by me from News Corp.
Two names at the Commonwealth Games stand out more than any others this morning; not because they've covered themselves in glory, but because they've covered themselves in disgrace and stupidity.
Shane Perkins gave a two-fingered salute to officials at the Velodrome after he was sent back to the 7th-12th Keirin cycling event after he was pinged for dangerous riding in the semi final.
Hassene Fkiri was stripped of his silver medal in the wrestling after refusing to shake hands with the new champion Anil Kumar, and then giving the officials a middle-finger salute.
Good. You both get what you deserved... nothing.
As competitors from backyard sports all the way up to national, Olympic and world class events, it should be drummed into everyone that the referee's decision is final and you never have the right to argue with them.
Of the two sports which I play (football and cricket) the laws are quite explicit as to the powers of the official.
Law 5 of the Laws of Football states:
Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match to which he has been appointed.
Take note of those two important words "full authority". That means that you Shane Shoutymouth have no right to complain, because if the referee's authority is "full", then their decisions and opinions are the only ones which matter.
Curiously one of the sub-clauses says that the refere "acts as timekeeper and keeps a record of the match". This replaced previous clause that the referee was the "sole arbiter of time" as far as the match was concerned. In theory because the referee had "full authority" then they actually had license under Law 5 to break all other nominal rules of time, which leads to the odd postulation that maybe referees had access to time travel... er...
Of course I am running away with myself here but Law 5 goes on to state that:
The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play are final.
The referee may only change a decision on realising that it is incorrect or, at his discretion, on the advice of an assistant referee, provided that he has not restarted play.
So not only does the referee effective have the "rule of God" on the pitch, but he isn't allowed to change his decision if the players whinge or have a big sulk. What's the lesson? Don't talk back to the referee... EVER.
The Laws of Cricket are altogether longer and complicated but equally no softer on their stance. Law 3 deals with the umpires and it has this to say:
3.7 - Fair and unfair play: The umpires shall be the sole judges of fair and unfair play.
3.12 - Consultation between umpires: All disputes shall be determined by the umpires. The umpires shall consult with each other whenever necessary.
If umpires are the "sole judges" of play and "shall consult with each other whenever necessary" it again means that you Shane Shoutymouth have no right to complain.
This principle exists in virtually every sport I can think of. The rules of field hockey state:
11.1 Two umpires control the match, apply the Rules and are the judges of fair play.
11.2 Each umpire has primary responsibility for decisions in one half of the field for the duration of the match.
Motor Racing:
1. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, hereafter termed the FIA, shall be the sole international sporting authority entitled to make and enforce regulations for the encouragement and control of automobile competitions and records,
What about cycling?
Chief Commissaire
1. Has full control of all championship and other events, officials, competitors and accredited team personnel from one hour prior to the commencement of the event or Manager's Meeting until one hour after the completion of the last victory ceremony.
To be fair I can't find the regulations which relate to wrestling but I can't see why the principle should be any different.
That general principle is that if you are a competitor then don't talk back to the referee because they've been appointed as the authority for the competition. If you do decide to talk back, although no-one remembers the name of the referee, your name will go down in history as being a whingey little imp.
Likewise Shane Perkins and Hassene Fkiri will be remembered not because of how many medals they won at these Commonwealth Games but for the fact that they couldn't keep their fool mouth shut.
October 06, 2010
Horse 1113 - Capitalist Negligence?
http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html
This is stupid. This is dangerously stupid.
Fortunately we don't live in the dangerously stupid country of the United States. If this was anywhere in the Commonwealth in any Commonwealth country, there is duty of care with regards reasonableness as spelled out in Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Company (1856).
It is reasonable to expect that the fire brigade will make an effort to put out a fire. Under Common Law, a reasonable person failing to act falls under the grounds of negligence.
Negligence as stated by judge Baron Edward Hall Alderson is "the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. The defendants might have been liable for negligence, if, unintentionally, they omitted to do that which a reasonable person would have done, or did that which a person taking reasonable precautions would not have done."
Equity in English Law and as a result the law in Australia, is distinct from Common Law and Case Law in that the law of equity provides in theory what is just, ethical and... equitable. It might be perfectly legal that if someone hasn't paid the fee for fire insurance but to simply let their house burn to the ground when something could have been done, is disgusting. The mere fact that you can opt out is quite frankly pathetic.
Why stop at fire fighting? If a person didn't pay for the ambulance service should they simply be allowed to die on the side of the road? Is that reasonable, ethical or equitable?
Morally, I question the type of society American is becoming where money is placed in front of life and assistance. By inference, if Australia follows behind America by about 10 years, is this where we're going to end up?
In the fiercely capitalist days of Victorian England, this very issue about fire service came to a blazing conclusion. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, various fire insurance companies started to spring up, operating their own fire brigades. Affixed to many buildings throughout England (and in North America), small plaques began to appear which denoted not only that the building had fire insurance, but which company they were insured with.
The problem was that fire is not discriminating, and a fire which started in one building could spread to another. If the building next door was with a different insurance company or even had no insurance at all, then it was common practice for fire brigades to let buildings burn to the ground, just like as Mr Cranick found out.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act was passed in 1865 and the responsibility of firefighting away from the insurance companies precisely because they refused to put out fires they didn't have a direct interest in.
Their negligence firstly caused more than 35 buildings to burn down on the north bank of the Thames in 1834 including the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament) and when the Tooley Street fire happened on the south bank in 1861, it lasted 14 days.
http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/TheTooleyStreetFire.asp
Actual history proves that letting the private sector manage the fire departments is not only foolhardly but if things go wrong, it causes a hideous market failure.
All I can say is that personal liberty matters precisely jack squat if you're dead.
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight.
A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.
Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay. The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.
This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond. Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.
This is stupid. This is dangerously stupid.
Fortunately we don't live in the dangerously stupid country of the United States. If this was anywhere in the Commonwealth in any Commonwealth country, there is duty of care with regards reasonableness as spelled out in Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Company (1856).
It is reasonable to expect that the fire brigade will make an effort to put out a fire. Under Common Law, a reasonable person failing to act falls under the grounds of negligence.
Negligence as stated by judge Baron Edward Hall Alderson is "the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. The defendants might have been liable for negligence, if, unintentionally, they omitted to do that which a reasonable person would have done, or did that which a person taking reasonable precautions would not have done."
Equity in English Law and as a result the law in Australia, is distinct from Common Law and Case Law in that the law of equity provides in theory what is just, ethical and... equitable. It might be perfectly legal that if someone hasn't paid the fee for fire insurance but to simply let their house burn to the ground when something could have been done, is disgusting. The mere fact that you can opt out is quite frankly pathetic.
Why stop at fire fighting? If a person didn't pay for the ambulance service should they simply be allowed to die on the side of the road? Is that reasonable, ethical or equitable?
Morally, I question the type of society American is becoming where money is placed in front of life and assistance. By inference, if Australia follows behind America by about 10 years, is this where we're going to end up?
In the fiercely capitalist days of Victorian England, this very issue about fire service came to a blazing conclusion. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, various fire insurance companies started to spring up, operating their own fire brigades. Affixed to many buildings throughout England (and in North America), small plaques began to appear which denoted not only that the building had fire insurance, but which company they were insured with.
The problem was that fire is not discriminating, and a fire which started in one building could spread to another. If the building next door was with a different insurance company or even had no insurance at all, then it was common practice for fire brigades to let buildings burn to the ground, just like as Mr Cranick found out.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act was passed in 1865 and the responsibility of firefighting away from the insurance companies precisely because they refused to put out fires they didn't have a direct interest in.
Their negligence firstly caused more than 35 buildings to burn down on the north bank of the Thames in 1834 including the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament) and when the Tooley Street fire happened on the south bank in 1861, it lasted 14 days.
http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/TheTooleyStreetFire.asp
Actual history proves that letting the private sector manage the fire departments is not only foolhardly but if things go wrong, it causes a hideous market failure.
All I can say is that personal liberty matters precisely jack squat if you're dead.
October 01, 2010
Horse 1112 - Are AFL players really "soft"?
The thing I find really incredible in the newspapers this week with regards to the replay of the AFL Grand Final, isn't the fact that there is going to be a replay, but that Rules players are somehow "soft" for not playing extra time. Just quietly me thinks that people who hold this opinion are on the whole, part of the increasingly obese and sedentary portion of society and have never done a day of sport since they left high school.
These are the facts.
Rugby League is played for 40 minutes a half. The current format for deciding extra time is the "golden point" rule. In the Roosters - Tigers match last weekend, the match was finally ended in the 101st minute.
Football is played for 45 minutes a half. Extra time if it is to be played then goes on for two periods of 15 minutes.
Australian Rules Football is played for 25 minutes a quarter with time added on for stoppages which typically add on about 7 minutes a quarter.
Now if you follow through the maths and work out the longest typical match for the three codes, you get:
Rugby League = 40mins + 40mins + golden point = 101mins (longest to date)
Football = 45mins + 45mins + 15mins ET + 15mins ET = 120mins
Australian Rules = 32mins + 32mins + 32mins + 32mins = 128mins (typical).
For a regular match, the players are already on the field for longer than a match played to extra time in either Football or Rugby League. In fact the Roosters - Tigers match last weekend which ended in the 101st minute would probably be only just into the fourth quarter of a normal Australian Rules football match.
Accusations which have appeared in the letters column to the Daily Toiletpaper and the Sydney Moaning Herald, are entirely unfounded.
At the end of 131 minutes between the Pies and the Saints at the MCG last weekend (I checked the actual timekeeping), we saw a lot of players who were quite frankly exhausted and within good reason. They'd played their guts out in one of the most exciting finals we've seen in 30 years, and were understandably both physically and mentally drained.
Do you honestly expect them to fight out another period of extra time? Would that mean a match which would last yet another 32 minutes, bringing us up to a neat 160?
Meanwhile I bet that for the vast majority of people complaining, their biggest amount of physical exertion consisted of extending their thumbs to operate the remote, maybe making a run to to kitchen to get more beer and chips, and moving their corpulent posteriors around the couch.
Obviously with such experience, they're in the perfect position to tell Australian Rules players that they're "soft"; especially since the only grab they may have done all afternoon was a flame-grilled Whopper for some unknown reason.
These are the facts.
Rugby League is played for 40 minutes a half. The current format for deciding extra time is the "golden point" rule. In the Roosters - Tigers match last weekend, the match was finally ended in the 101st minute.
Football is played for 45 minutes a half. Extra time if it is to be played then goes on for two periods of 15 minutes.
Australian Rules Football is played for 25 minutes a quarter with time added on for stoppages which typically add on about 7 minutes a quarter.
Now if you follow through the maths and work out the longest typical match for the three codes, you get:
Rugby League = 40mins + 40mins + golden point = 101mins (longest to date)
Football = 45mins + 45mins + 15mins ET + 15mins ET = 120mins
Australian Rules = 32mins + 32mins + 32mins + 32mins = 128mins (typical).
For a regular match, the players are already on the field for longer than a match played to extra time in either Football or Rugby League. In fact the Roosters - Tigers match last weekend which ended in the 101st minute would probably be only just into the fourth quarter of a normal Australian Rules football match.
Accusations which have appeared in the letters column to the Daily Toiletpaper and the Sydney Moaning Herald, are entirely unfounded.
At the end of 131 minutes between the Pies and the Saints at the MCG last weekend (I checked the actual timekeeping), we saw a lot of players who were quite frankly exhausted and within good reason. They'd played their guts out in one of the most exciting finals we've seen in 30 years, and were understandably both physically and mentally drained.
Do you honestly expect them to fight out another period of extra time? Would that mean a match which would last yet another 32 minutes, bringing us up to a neat 160?
Meanwhile I bet that for the vast majority of people complaining, their biggest amount of physical exertion consisted of extending their thumbs to operate the remote, maybe making a run to to kitchen to get more beer and chips, and moving their corpulent posteriors around the couch.
Obviously with such experience, they're in the perfect position to tell Australian Rules players that they're "soft"; especially since the only grab they may have done all afternoon was a flame-grilled Whopper for some unknown reason.
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