by cameron | Jul 5, 2008 | Uncategorized
I nearly missed my connecting flight from Changi but, apart from that, the 28 hour trip (door to door) here went smoothly. It took me an hour to get through customers, an hour to get to the Latin Quarter where my hotel is… and then another 90 minutes while I walked around LOST because the map I’d printed out from Google Maps was WRONG. I’m bad enough following directions as it is, but it doesn’t help when the map you’re using is about 5 blocks out.
After I checked in, had a shower and a nap, I headed out to Notre Dame for a quick look. I was planning on sketching it – I have a goal to complete one sketch a day while I’m here – but it was raining. I bought a book from Shakespeare & Co (Henry Miller’s “Quiet Day In Clichy”) and ended up sketching the Pantheon when the rain finally stopped.
Now I’m sitting in an Aussie bar not far from my hotel (Hotel Home Latin), using their free wifi, before I head out to catch some jazz at Cafe Universal.
It turns out Nick Randolph (former TPN host) is here as well so we’re going to hook up tonight for a drink! We just hooked up over Skype when he saw my status message.
Paris is brilliant. This is my second time here and it is seriously the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to. I’ve got to live here. Soon.
by cameron | Jul 4, 2008 | Podcast, Uncategorized
I fly out today to attend the International Napoleonic Society’s conference in Ajaccio, Corsica. I’m spending a week there and a week in Paris. My co-host of the Napoleon podcast, J. David Markham, and I will be shooting video podcasts from Les Invalides (where he’s buried), La Malmaison (where he lived with Josephine), Arc de Triompe (which he had built to commemorate his victories), the Louvre (which contains lots of paintings of him), Musée de l’Armée (which contains lots of memorabilia, his hat, coats, etc), and from the house where he gre up in Ajaccio and on Elba where he lived out this first abdication in 1814. It’s going to be a busy trip!
I’m also planning to visit many of the Henry Miller sites around Paris as I’ve been reading a lot of his and Anais Nin’s work over the last few years since my last trip to Paris in 2004.
I’ll try to do a few shows while I’m over there. So stay tuned!
by cameron | Jul 3, 2008 | climate change, Melbourne, Podcast
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My guest today is Peter Singer.
He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), University of Melbourne. Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement.
I invited him onto the show to talk about the recent news from Spain that they will soon probably extend basic legal rights to all non-human hominids, an idea that has been driven by an organization that Peter co-founded, The Great Ape Project. We also talk about the basic ethics of utilitarianism and how the best thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to stop eating meat.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
by cameron | Jul 1, 2008 | US politics
I’ve expressed my doubts about the Cult of Obama here a few times. I spotted this video in a Twitter comment today who said it was “racist”. What?? I don’t see how it can be called racist. I think it points out the obvious – that in order to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, you have to be a “player”, that is, you have to be part of the system, accepted and acceptable to the corporations that run the United States. And if you are part of the system, you have already sold out to the rich, white guys that run things. He is pwned.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jovq9j8cJSc&hl=en]
by cameron | Jul 1, 2008 | Uncategorized
I’m very excited about this – my kids are starting their first business – KIDS CANDLE COMPANY. Follow their progress on their new blog.
by cameron | Jun 30, 2008 | Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Melbourne, Mercy Ministries, Podcast
My guests tonight are a couple from Melbourne who we’ll call “Bazza” and “Shazza”. For the last five years they were franchisees with Gloria Jean’s Coffee. They’ve come on to discuss their experience.
As regular readers will know, I’ve been taking an interest in Gloria Jean’s over the last few years (read earlier posts here), especially in the relationship between Gloria Jean’s Coffee, Hillsong Church and Mercy Ministries.
As you might be aware, there have been allegations over the last six months that Mercy Ministries has been treating it’s clients (mostly “troubled” young women) with techniques including exorcisms and prayer readings.
Even Gloria Jean’s Global Marketing Manager has commented on the blog in an attempt to provide their side of the story.
So I was pleased when Bazza and Shazza agreed to come on to share an insider’s story.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
If you’re wondering what the opening quotes are from on today’s show, it’s the opening lines from Rimbaud’s “A Season In Hell”.
by cameron | Jun 30, 2008 | Australian politics, Podcast
Tonight’s guests – Katherine Szuminska & Matthew Landauer – are the founders of OpenAustralia.org, a recently-launched site which makes politics more transparent.
Based on the British site TheyWorkForYou, OpenAustralia.org scrapes Hansard and makes it much more accessible. You can find out who your local MP is and then subscribe to email alerts whenever they say something in Parliament. And that’s just the beginning. Kat & Matt have a number of exciting features they intend to bring to the site in the next year or two.
This is their first interview.
ONLY ONE DAY LEFT TO ENTER THE RUNNING FOR THE POSTER!
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The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
Other music in today’s episode:
Curro , Curro
“El Bueno, El Feo Y El Malo” (mp3)
from “Silba A Ennio Morricone”
(DiscMedi)
More On This Album
Michael Brook
“Earth Alone” (mp3)
from “An Inconvenient Truth – Soundtrack”
(bigHelium/Canadian Rational)
More On This Album
by cameron | Jun 29, 2008 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
An interesting story… apparently “great apes” – that is, all non-human members of the biological family Hominidae which includes chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans – are soon to get full human rights in Spain.
They won’t be able to be kept captive, used in experiments for in television commercials. This outcome is the work of The Great Ape Project, which was co-founded by Peter Singer, a Melbourne-born philosopher who is currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.
But why stop at hominids?
I’m sure Singer would like to see all animals share the same rights as humans but hominids is the low-hanging fruit. They share so much DNA with us that it’s easy to make the case that they should enjoy the same rights.
Personally I’d like to see similar laws in Australia and I’d also like to see them extended to all mammals.
Imagine a world where it was against the law to put a cow or a sheep or a kangaroo behind a fence or in a cage, let alone kill them for food.
We’d be forced to re-think our entire relationship with other species. We’d be forced to re-think our entire way of life.
Back to Spain… amazing to think that the country that only abolished the Inquisition less than 200 years ago has now legalized gay marriage and is about to give full human rights to apes and chimps. Any Spanish folks out there? I’d love to know what you think about how Spain is leading the world on these issues.
by cameron | Jun 28, 2008 | Uncategorized
Now that Bill Gates has left his day-to-day role at Microsoft, I feel compelled to write something.
Last week ABC TV’s Lateline program contacted me asking if I would be prepared to “balance out” the positive coverage of Gates for their show. I informed them that they were asking the wrong bloke – I’m a huge Gates fanboy. I may be using a Macbook Pro as my main working PC these days, and I may think that Microsoft’s best days are long behind them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the importance Bill has played in the history of computing and the history of the human race.
About 12 years ago I was working at an ISP, Ozemail, and I remember lots of the techs there bagging Microsoft on a daily basis. They were mostly Linux geeks. I remember pointing out to them that none of us would likely have a job without Gates – that the low-cost “computer on every desktop” that we all benefited from was the result of Gates’ decision to license his DOS to every PC manufacturer on the planet, thereby making the hardware a commodity and driving down prices.
I started studying Gates in the early 90s. I remember buying every book I could that discussed Gates and Microsoft’s culture. I wanted to understand how and why he built the company, how it did what it did and how it became such a success.
When I had a chance to work there in 1998, I jumped at it. Even though I ended up disappointed with the culture in the Australian subsidiary, and I today can see how Microsoft’s role has changed from being an innovator to a hangeronna, it doesn’t diminish my admiration of Gates one iota. It’s not his wealth that I admire, it’s his vision, tenacity and execution. Like Napoleon, he not only saw further than most, he was able to execute around that vision. And that is so, so rare.
Many commentators are calling Gates’ new role his “third act”. I think it’s only his second. Microsoft was just the first act in what is going to be one of the most interesting lives of the 20th and 21st centuries. This guy has literally shaped the course of human history. Can you even begin to imagine what the world would look like today without the PC revolution?
Some people say “well, if Microsoft hadn’t done it, another company would have”. But we don’t know that. Apple certainly wasn’t interested in low cost computing back then – or today for that matter.
Quite possibly, without Microsoft, we’d be still living in a world where a basic home computer would cost $5,000 – $10,000. No internet outside of Universities and the military. No Spore. No Twitter.
What happens next?
My guess is that Bill will be back at Microsoft in five years. I think that Microsoft without Bill will be like Apple without Steve. It’ll flounder, collapse in internal political jostling, lose it’s best people (the ones it hasn’t already lost to Google and start-ups), the share price will continue to flounder, it’ll play even more catch-up with Google and Apple, more OEMs will defect to Linux and Google – and eventually Bill be back, refreshed from his time spent solving the world health crisis (his Act Two), ready for his personal Act Three.
One day I’d like to interview him on G’Day World. One day.
by cameron | Jun 26, 2008 | Australian politics, Iraq
America – your tax dollars have been well spent. What can you buy with one trillion dollars? No-bid contracts:
Nearly Four Decades Later, U.S. Oil Companies Return to Iraq
Four oil companies are in the final stage of contract negotiations to regain drilling rights in Iraq — thirty-six years after they lost them. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — founding partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — are currently in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry “for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields.” Joining them are Chevron and several smaller oil companies. The deal is expected to be approved by the end of the month and “will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.” The no-bid process has frozen out 40 other oil companies, including Indian, Russian and Chinese competitors. A spokesperson for the Oil Ministry said that “the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.” He added that the companies chosen already had a relationship with the government, “advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts.” While the current contracts are relatively small, they represent a foot in the door for much more lucrative future deals.
Source: New York Times, June 19, 2008 via Center for Media and Democracy
