"Recapitalise the banks!"

That's the rallying cry from the pundits to a Eurozone on the ropes.

But what do they mean by "recapitalise the banks"? I think they mean steal from the poor (the taxpayers) and give to the rich (the bankers).

Do you smell the whiff of revolution?

I do...

Julia, you're stuffed, babe.

Back in 2005, I thought she was the bee's knees.

But now that we see the way her government, including Gillard personally, has dealt with the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Allan Asher's concerns, as far as I'm concerned, she's chopped liver.

May she rot in hell.

Grrrrr...

Not happy, Julia & Chris...

Go get 'em, Bob & Sarah...

Hang 'em high !!!

(Update: It's 3:00am and I had to get up to add that my "chopped liver" comment was purely figurative and not at all to be taken literally. I mean the PM no physical harm in any way. OK, ASIO ??? F*cking paranoid idiots!!!)

Oh Virginia...

I think Virginia Trioli is HOT. At least as hot as Ticky Fullerton.

In fact, I'm having illicit imaginings of a threesome...

So shoot me...

I acknowledge that I need therapy... and that I'm a dirty, smelly old man...

But I digress...

Tonight I'm watching "Artscape: Virginia Trioli Presents NCP"

And I'm getting angry at a particular thread of thought rearing its ugly head in the show: That of public funding for The Yarts...

Bullshit !!!

Right wing regimes only throw public money at right wing art.

Left wing regimes only throw public money at left wing art.

I say "no public funding" for politically correct art of either persuasion.

I say "no public funding" for art at all. If you're doing "art" in order to make money, it can't possibly be art.

Now, I would advocate public funding for apolitical artistic training and education. But that's it, baby, after that, you're on your own - sink or swim based on the non-public money you can garner, if money is important to you.

Try this on: Your "art" is that which you do with no thought of financial recompense or gain.

Discuss.

Chomsky explains "stability"

Quote*: Chomsky also discussed how American foreign policy is used to stabilize other countries in which it has a vested interest. One of those countries was Chile during the 1960s and ’70s.

“When we invade those countries, and half destroy them, that stabilizes the region. This is the normal usage of the term stability,” Chomsky said. “Stability means we run it, we own the world.”

* Read full article here >>>

Ahh... Now I understand what they mean when they say "We are helping the US bring stability to the region." It's code for "we're breeding more 'terrorists' so that we can have eternal war for eternal peace, thereby keeping the military industrial complex fully oxygenated."

Does anyone still think that the Bali bombings were not a classic example of the fruits of our helping the US bring "stability" to the world?

Oh Ticky...

I'm watching TV.

ABC Lateline Business is just finishing up.

"Ticky Fullerton, Lateline Business, Goodnight."

And what do I do?

I say "Good night, Ticky." And I make smooch smooch sounds at the TV.

[1] Am I sick?

[2] Should I get therapy?

[3] Should I send her flowers?

What !?!?!?

The Mad Monk's followers...

The Mad Monk's followers were in the parliament today making lots of noise. They don't want a carbon tax. But I think it goes deeper than that.

The Mad Monk's a Catholic. Many of his followers who were being rowdy and abusive about Julia Gillard today looked like typical Catholic parishioners. Catholics don't like science. Science teaches evolution. Catholics prefer creationist myth to hard science.

Could it be that that the Mad Monk's followers have a problem with climate science because they have a problem with science in general and this is part of a war on science being waged by the Catholic Church?

An interesting conjecture? Or proof that I should give up blogging?

Free range blogging #2

It's on again.

The first person raise a topic gets to own the comment thread.

What are you waiting for?

Penis envy gone mad?

Clive Hamilton has nailed it >>>

I hope the misandristic "feminist" blogger who sprayed her bile all over me and labelled me a misogynist when I tried to debate this very issue with her on her blog a while ago has read Hamilton's article. But I suspect she's 100% clueproof.

Anyhow, forget about her, what do YOU think of Hamilton's article?

Of sabres, swords and ploughshares...

Talisman Sabre is a joint Australian/US military exercise held every two years. It is also a magnet for anti-war protesters. I am an anti-war protester, and I may one day get up to Rockhampton to join such protests.

However... this year there was an incident which I found difficult to condone.

A protester took to a military helicopter with a mattock, causing $200,000 damage, according to an (exaggerated?) estimate by the military.

Among the anti-war protest movement this action was seen as noble and heroic, and it attracted accolades for the mattock-wielding protester from like-minded protesters. It was labelled by them as a classic "swords to ploughshares" action.

But it left me feeling uneasy when I read about it. As an advocate of non-violent protest, I do not condone any injury to people or damage to property. The "swords into ploughshares" rhetoric is convincing for some, but it does not sit well with me.

For a start, the biblical origin of this idea had to do with people voluntarily turning their own swords into ploughshares. This is not the same as seizing someone else's sword and, against the owner's will, beating it into a ploughshare. The former is a truly peaceful action, whereas the latter is clearly a physically aggressive action driven by a "the end justifies the means" mentality.

And then there's the psychological aspect. If the aim of the protest is to persuade people not yet on-side to come on-side, then damaging helicopters is, I would argue, not very likely to achieve that aim. People currently unable to see anything wrong with joint Australian/US military exercises are likely to find the damaging of helicopters by protesters an affront.

I would argue that such actions offend the very people whose minds we are trying to change. I would further argue that such actions are ego-driven, attention-seeking behaviour aimed, not at changing the attitudes of the as-yet unconvinced section of the public, but more focussed on militancy and winning the approval of the already-converted. It is, in my book, totally incestuous and counter-productive.

Free range blogging...

The first person raise a topic gets to own the comment thread.

What are you waiting for?

Do not go gentle...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

(Brownie, thanks for reminding me. I'm trying. Really, I am... ;-)

Satyagraha

I'm reading William L. Shirer's biography "Gandhi - a Memoir".

Explaining why he was on the train to Delhi, Shirer said "It would be best to see Gandhi first, to try to grasp the nature of his genius [...], to get from the master himself an understanding of his unique contribution to the revolutionary politics of the twentieth century, Satyagraha, a word he had coined from his native Gujarati and which, I suspected, meant much more, at least in the Hindu consciousness, than civil disobedience, passive resistance, non-cooperation, and non-violence, though it encompassed all of these."

Any Gujarati-speaking Hindus reading this? I'd like to know more.

The joys of privatisation

So they've privatised water and electricity. And now people are screaming that their bills have skyrocketed. What a coincidence...

Do they not understand how it works?

Do I have to explain it?

[sigh] OK. It works like this:

Now you have your water and electricity run by corporations which have a legal obligation to provide a good return (profit) for their shareholders (or the shareholders will run away to where better profits can be had and the corporation goes bust.)

With me so far? Good.

Now, let's say a good return is 10%. So now you have the monopoly corporation's bean counters setting up a price structure to suit.

one year out = 110%
two years out = 121%
three years out = 132%
four years out = 145%
five years out = 160%

That's just to keep the share holders happy in a zero inflation game and without factoring in any costs of infrastructure increase or upgrade.

And these corporations aren't silly - they will do only the minimum maintenance. They know that when the system gets to breaking point the government must bail them out to the tune of the required upgrade because by then the government will be entirely dependent on the corporation. So then massive taxpayer slugs will be required on top of the already exorbitant usage charges.

Keep voting for the Lib-Labs, guys...

A man sees what he wants to see...

..and disregards the rest.

Paul Simon knew.

Today, reading the SMH, I came across the headline "Slice of silicon valley as social media moves in". I had not started reading the article when my gaze was snared by an insert positioned in the centre of the piece which said "Business Day: Fears of Geek debt default. Page 1."

Well, it actually said "Greek", but I didn't realise that for a few seconds...

Armchair warriors

ICBMs. Cruise missiles. Predator and Reaper drones. Military robots.

War by remote control or computer-based logic.

Armchair warriors.

Will those "doing the fighting" be called heroes?

Will these armchair warriors be deemed to have displayed great bravery and courage under fire?

Will they be awarded medals and honours?

What will their citations say?

"...sat in his armchair, and without giving any thought to his pizza going cold, he tracked them, and when too much excitement became barely enough, he pressed the trigger, and bravely murdered a dozen suspected freedom fighters walking with their families to a wedding."

Will they be marching in veterans' parades?

Will the spectators cheer?

Pure evil...

Evil.

Is there such a thing? (Lynda La Plante thinks so.)

If you think evil exists, how do you define it?

Hit me with your rhythm stick...

In the deserts of Sudan and the gardens of Japan
From Milan to Yucatan, ev'ry woman, ev'ry man
...
In the wilds of Borneo and the vineyards of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho, move their body to and fro
...
In the dock of Tiger Bay, on the road to Mandalay
From Bombay to Santa Fé, o'er the hills and far away
...
Hit me with your rhythm stick...

And from elsewhere on the Interweb...

Diogenes wanted to study under Antisthenes, who was the leader of the Cynics. But Antisthenes at first refused to admit him into his house and even struck him with a stick.

Diogenes calmly bore the rebuke and said, "hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence, while you speak anything worth hearing."

The philosopher was so delighted with this reply that he at once admitted Diogenes into his group of scholars. [Source]

Ahhh... they don't make 'em like they used to...

I'll second that...

On the ABC's Q&A programme tonight, Malalai Joya gave us this gem:

"The silence of good people is worse than the actions of bad people," said Joya.

Women and children first

This week there was a tragic house fire in Brisbane in which eleven women and children are reported to have been burned to death. The outpouring of grief was immense.

The survivors, the relatives and friends of the dead, and indeed the entire nation, are all still trying to come to terms with the awfulness of this tragedy.

Three men were the only ones who made it out alive.

At the risk of being accused of gross insensitivity, and because no one has asked it yet, I need to ask a question which won't stop shouting at me from within my head:

Whatever happened to the maxim "Women and children first"?

No disrespect intended.

To leak or not to leak...

Speaking about the Bradley Manning Wikileaks furore on the ABC's Q&A program last night, ex-senator Nick Minchin wanted us to believe that the aim of diplomacy was to prevent wars breaking out (and that's why maintaining secrecy was essential).

Don't you just love the way these spinmeisters pretend they are unaware of "the other side" of whatever they're spinning about?

Only a grossly underinformed viewer would have bought Minchin's rhetoric.

The rest of us know that the diplomatic sphere is also where the dirty deals and posturing leading up to wars are discussed and negotiated. It's also the cover for espionage and the facilitation of black ops.

So should Bradley Manning have leaked all those diplomatic dispatches?

Probably not all of them.

[read previous post about Bradley Manning]