by cameron | Sep 19, 2007 | Podcast
IN G’Day World #291 I feature three interviews I have completed over recent weeks with senior executives from three of Australia’s top ISPs:
Ravi Bhatia, CEO of Primus
Simon Hackett, CEO of Internode
Ben Dunscombe, Regulatory Affairs Manager, Netspace
In a way, these interviews are a response to the show I did with Dr Phil Burgess from Telstra a few months ago (G’Day World #211).
You’ve all heard various people, including Telstra and Senator Coonan, state that Australia is lagging the world in broadband. So I asked these gents for their perspective.
I’ll be interested to know what you think of their answers.
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by cameron | Sep 18, 2007 | capitalism
“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.
Amazon.com Widgets
by cameron | Sep 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
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.
by cameron | Sep 18, 2007 | US politics
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.”
by cameron | Sep 17, 2007 | Australian politics
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?
