“Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism” is the title of a new article written by HARRIET RUBIN for The New York Times.
“The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” are two of the most influential books I have ever read. I was fortunate enough to have them recommended to me when I was in my early 20s and I have read both of them more times than I can remember since then. They never fail to inspire me to try to achieve everything I can with my life.
In the comments section to my 2Clix post, someone going by the name of “Stan Doverman” criticized my advice to 2Clix and then, when I asked him to demonstrate his mental acuity and explain where my advice was so misguided, Stan, following in the long tradition of people without anything to contribute, could only flail around and attempt to insult me personally.
Why, Stan Doverman, didn’t you explain where I went so wrong?
Why, Stan Doverman, didn’t you contribute to the conversation, instead of just lapsing into childish insults?
Why, Stan Doverman, weren’t you able to back up your assertions with ideas, advice, suggestions instead of opprobrium?
If you want to participate in the conversation, Stan Doverman, come prepared next time with more than invective. You are always welcome. I don’t mind intelligent criticism. I laugh, however, at mindless abuse. It’s pathetic.
In this video from The Real News, Gore Vidal makes the suggestion I’ve heard a number of times that the USA knew Japan was defeated and had surrendered BEFORE they dropped the atom bombs on them. But they went ahead and did it anyway.
http://therealnews.com/permalinkedembed/mediaplayer.swf
I’ve been reading lately about “NSC 68” or “National Security Council paper 68” which was drafted in 1950. That’s pretty much where many of the world’s current problems started and signaled the the beginning of America as a global bully and the corresponding decline of their moral authority. Read about it here and here.
From Wikipeda:
“NSC-68 would make the case for a US military buildup to confront what it called an enemy “unlike previous aspirants to hegemony. .. animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own.” The Soviet Union and the United States existed in a bi-polar world, in which the Soviets wished to “impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” This would be a war of ideas in which “the idea of freedom under a government of laws, and the idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the “Kremlin” were pitted against each other. Therefore, the US as “the center of power in the free world,” should build an international community in which American society would “survive and flourish” and pursue a policy of containment.”
Back in March when I had Dr Phil Burgess, Telstra’s Group Managing Director, Public Policy and Communication, on the show, he tried to portray Telstra as Darryl Kerrigan, Michael Caton’s character from the 1997 film “The Castle“. The suggestion was that Telstra was just the poor common man getting beaten up by the big, bad Government.
This is a meme Phil’s been repeating recently and which forms the moral center of their court case again Communications Minister Helen Coonan over the OPEL deal.
That is, until today.
Unfortunately for Telstra, their PR shield has been smashed by documents dating back to June 2006 which suggest that losing the bid for the Government broadband extension program, and then challenging the lost bid in court, was always part of their strategy (link). Telstra’s strategy documents suggest using the court action to delay the new broadband roll-out until after the upcoming federal election and the expected change of Government, at which time they expect a better hearing than they get under Howard.
No mention of this, of course, on Telstra’s Now We Are Talking blog as far as I can see.
So it seems to me that Telstra might be wasting taxpayer’s money by forcing the Government to defend their decision to award the broadband contract to OPEL when Telstra had no intention of winning it in the first place. They are playing the same old Telstra bully-boy games they have played forever. Despite what Phil and Sol say about “under new management”, it’s the same old dirty Telstra bag of tricks, costing the country money and delaying the roll-out of much-needed broadband.
What do you think?
My guest today is one of Australia’s highest profile barristers and human rights advocates – Julian Burnside QC. He is also the current President of Liberty Victoria, also known as the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties Inc, an independent non-government organisation committed to the defence and extension of human rights and civil liberties.
I have been appalled by the way Australia’s Government has acted over the last decade in the Tampa crises, the situation with refugee internment and the recent Haneef case. The legislation which enshrines these acts in law is extremely disturbing. So I invited Julian onto the show in order to help me understand how we got here, to affirm why we should all be very concerned, and to ask him if he thinks Australia, the only country among advanced liberal democracies which doesn’t have a Bill Of Rights, needs one.
In answer to the question about why we need a Bill Of Rights, Burnside points to the case of Al-Kateb v Godwin. I had never heard of it before and I’m guessing many of you won’t have either. It relates to a finding by The High Court, in 2004, that unsuccessful asylum seekers who could not be removed to another country despite their wish to leave Australia could be held in immigration detention indefinitely. As Burnside puts it “someone who has not committed a crime and has no charges against them, can be held in jail permanently”.
Is this the country we want to have?
You can find Julian Burnside’s website here and Liberty Victoria’s e-membership programme here.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
I recently received a parking ticket (or “Parking Infringement Notice” as they call them in newspeak) in the mail from Maribyrnong City Council, my local council. The letter that came with the ticket states:
“The Enclosed Parking Infringement Notice was unable to be attached on the vehicle or served to the driver of the above vehicle registration number, on the said date of offence. The notice is therefore served on you as the registered owner of the vehicle by post.”
There is no explanation as to WHY it wasn’t attached to the vehicle or what the offence actually was. All the ticket says is the street where it occurred, the time and “DOUBLE PARK”. The street happens to be where my kid’s school is and it’s about the time in the morning where I drop them off. The suggestion is that I double parked while dropping my kids off to school but was obviously not parked there long enough for the parking inspector to knock on my window or stick a ticket on my screen.
And I NEVER double park. So I’ve send them a letter telling them to prove it. What a fucking cheek.
Spring cleaning my study today, came across this commemorative bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne
in a commemorative wooden box which was given out to members of Microsoft’s Internet Customer Unit in 1999 to celebrate the release of IE5.
I’m wondering – how long does champagne last? Not being a big drinker I know nothing about such things. I guess I could always google it… Anyone want to buy some Microsoft memorabilia?
I did google it… looks like a bottle of this (without the Microsoft packaging) sells for about $120.
Thanks very much technorati.
I’ve been trying to claim the Technorati Profile on this blog for months with no success. WTF?
Today my guest is Nick Johnstone, science teacher and education innovator.
Nick and I go WAY WAY BACK. This photo is from our last day of high school in 1987.
Anyway, these days Nick is Head of Science at St Lukes School in Bundaberg and he’s talking to me tonight about one of his favourite subjects: Information, Communication and Learning Technologies in Science Education. Nick is using Smartboards, mobile phones, wikis, podcasts and blogs in this classes and explains the educational benefits of using the latest technology in the classroom.
If you’re interested in learning more about the use of ICT in education, check out Nick’s site and TPN’s Education Transformation podcast.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.