All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris. Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2006.
One for the diary: the Suwannakorn series of photographs by my better half ’Pong will be on display at the European Grill, 506 King Street, during Newtown’s Walking the Street Exhibition from next Saturday 7 October.
Personally, I’d much rather have seen some of the urban abstracts on display, but hey that’s my taste. Maybe I just don’t like blue. But then the choice was also influenced by the display space available in the venue.
This is what George W Bush said at the Bob Riley for Governor lunch in Alabama yesterday:
There is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom.
And this, apparently, is part of his argument for legislation which intends to legitimise evidence gained through torture, create “military commissions” where hearsay is admissible as evidence and other “tools necessary to protect the American people in this war on terror” and keep people like David Hicks imprisoned without charge or trial for another four years.
Ah yes, freedom…
The whole speech is worth reading because it’s a fine example of how to do propaganda. And perhaps I’ll write more about that another time, if anyone’s interested?
Or would more Steve Irwin jokes be more suitable?
Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Europeans… the list goes on. This animated map shows the major themes — not perfect, perhaps, but at least the creators will listen to comments and update it.
Vodafone, if you want customers, why hang up on them? That’s just rude. Are you trying to drive me back to Telstra? Your robot-like email I could live with, that’s just the usual big-business robot-like thing. But why be rude?
Irrigated farms generate a quarter of Australia’s agricultural production, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The gross value of irrigated production was $9 billion in 2003-04. Irrigated horticulture made up 52% of that, followed by irrigated pastures (24%) and irrigated broadacre crops (24%).
So what happens when global warming dries out the canals? $12/kg bananas will be remembered as the _good_ times, and forget cheap wines from Mudgee.
Forget identity theft, your bank account could be at risk from your own web-surfing toddlers.
News from the BBC today that 3-year-old Jack Neal used his mother’s credit card to buy a £9000 pink Nissan from eBay.
“Rachael Neal, 36, said her son was quite good at using the computer, the BBC reports. Well, yes.
The seller of the car, Paul Jones, co-director of Worcester Road Motors in Stourport-on-Severn, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire, said he had been “amused” by the bid. It’s the first time they’ve sold a car on eBay.
He saw the funny side of the event, and has re-advertised the car.
Two views of the Earth which help put things in perspective — AlertMap and Breathing Earth.
AlertMap (and the original Hungarian version) shows the emergencies and disasters happening on earth right now in real time — everything in the last 24 hours including biological hazards, epidemics, earthquakes, tropical storms, tornados, hail, aviation accidents, active volcanoes and more. Click on each icon for a detailed description and map.
For some fine examples of how language is being manipulated in the War on Terror, try the Cato Institute briefing paper Doublespeak and the War on Terrorism. This 16-page report is very readable, and somewhat disturbing. Read on for some of my favourites…
Searches for “steve irwin jokes” or variations currently represent 67% of all search-generated traffic to this website. But that still doesn’t match the overall traffic levels when drugs spiked my website. What does this say about human nature?
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