December 2008

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When should I deliver my Christmas Message?

20 December 2008 in Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 14 comments

Photograph of Stilgherrian for Christmas

OK, the photo is from last year, but I couldn’t be bothered doing another one just yet. However, I have an important question for you!

Next Thursday is Christmas Day, and I’ve decided to do a special edition of Stilgherrian Live called ~~His Excellency Stilgherrian’s Christmas Message~~ His Benevolence Stilgherrian’s Christmas Message [see comments]. Something along the lines of Her Majesty’s little efforts from 2007 or 1957.

The question is: What time on Christmas Day should it be broadcast. In the afternoon at 3pm? Certainly not the usual 9.30pm, as everyone will have collapsed by then. But when? And what else should the program contain?

Links for 11 December 2008 through 20 December 2008

20 December 2008 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Here are the web links I’ve found for 11 through 20 December 2008, posted not-quite automatically There’s quite a few, but then it is the weekend.

The Internet is a filthy cesspit of depravity and moral turpitude (and must be stopped) | the platform: This article makes several points that I’ve been meaning to introduce into the censorship discussion but haven’t had time. “Just as in real life, parents have to protect their children from dangers. Just as in real life, you don’t have to visit the seedy part of town if you don’t want to. Just as in real life, blocking a freeway doesn’t stop me driving on other roads (it will increase congestion though).”
First Dog on the Moon’s Christmas Spectacular! | Crikey: “Join in the seasonal frivolity with the Official First Dog On The Moon Christmas Spectacular! Hooray! Kevin Rudd’s pets embark on their most ambitious adventure yet, a daring night time raid on the innocence of Australia’s kiddies.” One of First Dog’s best.
2008: Dashed dreams and mouldy political compromise | Crikey: Crikey‘s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane has written a magnificent 2000-word essay summing up the key issues of a year in Australian politics.
Guy Rundle’s that was the year that was | Crikey: Rundle’s delightfully snarky look back at 2008. He’s in fine form here!
The great porn war | smh.com.au: This overview of the Internet censorship issues seems to be remarkably behind the pace of the debate, but I suppose it’s aimed at what’s considered to a non-technical audience. These days, though, when the vast majority of literate Australians have their own computer, aren’t articles like this speaking to a minority?
Rundle08: Everything goes to cr-p, and just before Christmas | Crikey: One of Guy Rundle’s more magnificent essays. Did you know that the Ponzi Scheme is named after an episode of Happy Days?
The Cowbell Project: “We all know when a song needs that extra oomph, that extra push over the top, there’s only one thing that will satisfy: The Cowbell.”
The right to the Simpsons | Charterblog: And yet another analysis of The Simpsons decision, this time by Jeremy Gans of Melbourne Law School, who teaches and researches in criminal justice law.
McEWEN v SIMMONS & ANOR [2008] NSWSC 1292: The actual Supreme Court decision itself by Justice Adams. A lot to read, but of course a thoughtful analysis.
Sex and “The Simpsons” | On Line Opinion: Another analysis of The Simpsons case by lawyer Greg Barns.
Simpsons and sensibility | ABC Unleashed: Mark Pesce’s analysis of two recent Australian legal decisions: that uploading a video of someone else swinging a baby around makes you a “distributor of child abuse material”; and that characters from The Simpsons are “persons”, making anyone who looks at those popular parody videos of yellow-skinned characters having sex a child sex offender. Channel TEN must now be closed down because they regularly show Homer strangling Bart.
We are the Future: In 1993 there was a dance party in Adelaide to launch The Core EP, a 12-inch vinyl release containing 4 tracks. I was the executive producer. This website has the DJ mixes from the party.
To be liked, or not to be liked, that is the question… | nowwearetalking: “Does social media make it easier for customers/stakeholders to develop separate emotions and opinions between product and corporation?” A good question, and it quotes one of my more angry tweets as an example.
Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable | New Scientist: “Every civilisation in history has collapsed, after all. Why should ours be any different?” From April 2008, but even more relevant now.
Georg Simmel: “The Metropolis & Mental Life”: A fascinating article essay from 1903 about the way cities change us humans. Remarkably prescient, though slightly hard to read the century-old style. Worth the effort.
Impact of Net filtering overstated, claims agent | Computerworld: Internet filters don’t degrade performance as much as people fear, says a man whose job is selling Internet filters. Anyone see a neutrality issue here?
20 signs you don’t want that social media project | qwghlm.co.uk: Chris Applegate’s amusing-because-it’s-true list.
Enceladus! | Bad Astronomy: Disgustingly beautiful photo of Enceladus, winning my vote for Best Moon of 2008.
Twitter: Menace or Threat? | Xark!: A brilliant if slightly ranty blog post giving a real face-slap to curmudgeonly journalists who are still behind the pace at understanding new communication tools like Twitter.

On political reporting

19 December 2008 in Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

Crikey logo

Crikey‘s Bernard Keane has written a magnificent 2000-word wrap of the year in Australian politics, 2008: Dashed dreams and mouldy political compromise. Every sentence is worth reading — but especially his observations about the links between politicians and the media.

Politics is more or less based around people of high principles and good will discovering that the obtaining and exercising of power involves doing bad things, distasteful things, amoral things, involves unpleasant trade-offs and not just the famous half-loaves of compromise but stale, mouldy crusts. And it’s all the more that way because its symbiotic partner, its Siamese twin the media, dislikes complexity and nuance, in favour of the same simple narratives, repeated with an ever-changing cast of characters but the same plots and moral lessons over and over again. That’s what sells. And what gets votes.

It’s the media’s job, or one of them, to make much of little and it has done that expertly for much of the year, as it does always. History suggests that, barring incompetence on an inordinate scale, Labor will be in power for several terms, but that’s not going to attract many eyeballs. Instead, the most minor political events are forensically analysed, with each tiny feature placed under the microscope so that it looms large to the viewer despite its irrelevance. Recall The Australian’s concerted push for Peter Costello mid-year, undoubtedly motivated not just by a sense of mischief-making but by the moderate inclinations of the obvious alternative to the failing Nelson. After more than a year on the backbench, not a scintilla of evidence has emerged that Peter Costello ever intended to do anything other than what he said, which was to remain on the backbench until he found a job outside politics. And yet we — as in all of us — devoted many pixels and column inches to his imminent ascension, or the unlikelihood thereof.

Afterwards, we forgot all about that, and probably hoped our readers did too.

Never forget the media has a vested interested in convincing you something is happening even when precisely nothing is happening — indeed, particularly when nothing is happening. It is thus wise – and I’m possibly not telling you anything you don’t already know here — to retain a strong scepticism about all political reportage and analysis, no matter the source. We’re all selling something.

OK, I’m biased. I write for Crikey every now and then. But this is why I’d buy it anyway.

Kevin “5%” Rudd is our Cnut of the Week

19 December 2008 in Politics, Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | No comments

The result was clear even as nominations came in. Our Dear Chairman, Kevin “5%” Rudd, was voted “Cnut of the Week” by 51% of Stilgherrian Live viewers last night for approving what was seen as a lame target for reducing carbon emissions.

The program is now online for your viewing pleasure.

I’d thought Bernadette McMenamin would win, based on what I wrote in Crikey on Wednesday, but no. She scored 34%. Presumed-corrupt Illinois governor Rod Blagojevitch was third with 9% for his efforts to sell a senatorial seat in Washington, and Thailand’s People’s Alliance for Democracy came in last with just 6% for their efforts to make Thailand’s political system anything but democratic.

Next Thursday is Christmas Day. There will be a special program, His Excellency Stilgherrian’s Christmas Message, at a time to be announced. Stay tuned.

Stilgherrian Live returns. You know what that means

18 December 2008 in Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 23 comments

Cnut of the Week graphic

Finally, Stilgherrian Live returns tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time — and that means nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”.

Who do you think is futilely resisting the tide of change? I’ll select the shortlist at 8.30pm Sydney time, and you can vote during tonight’s program.

Who do you nominate, and why?

Does Nine’s cosy relationship with Microsoft prevent truth emerging?

18 December 2008 in Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

Crikey logo

If there’s a problem with some product which puts you at risk, you’d expect news bulletins to explain your safest options, yeah? But is that possible when the media outlet is a key business partner of the product’s manufacturer?

Yesterday’s zero-day exploit for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is a real risk. But Channel Nine’s story last night didn’t include options like using a non-Microsoft web browser. Was this just the journalist’s ignorance of computers? Or is it because of Nine’s 50/50 business partnership with Microsoft in one of Australia’s busiest websites, NineMSN?

That’s what I ask in Crikey today. The article isn’t behind their paywall, so it’s free for all to read.

The lies of the internet censors: Your. Filter. Won’t. Work.

17 December 2008 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 5 comments

Crikey logo

I’ve just written a piece for Crikey today about the hypocrisy of those folks in favour of Internet censorship. It begins:

Gloves-off time. The purveyors of pervasive internet censorship — handful that they are — have burned their goodwill. It’s time to call them out on their lies and demand to know why they’re not advocating the real solutions to child sexual abuse.

Bernadette McMenamin of ChildWise, you’ve crossed the line, defaming everyone who’s protested the government’s plans. “Most of these people are not fully aware of the facts and secondly, those who are aware are, in effect, advocating child pornography,” you said. How dare you!

Ms McMenamin, to really stop child abuse we need to spend our resources efficiently. Let’s run through it one more time. And let’s skip those hysterical, made-up “statistics” you still peddle. Child abuse is bad enough without heading into your paranoid fantasyland.

It continues in that vein. It’s not behind Crikey‘s paywall so it’s free to read.

Telstra, you goddam bloody idiots!

15 December 2008 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 25 comments

Telstra logo

Once more, Telstra demonstrates its appalling arrogance. They’ve just been excluded from bidding for Australia’s National Broadband Network for submitting a non-compliant bid, and now try to deny it despite their own clear evidence.

The Australian IT reports today:

In a statement to the stock exchange, Telstra said it had been excluded from the bidding process because its proposal submitted on November 26 did not include a plan on how to involve small and medium-sized enterprises in the building of the network.

26 November was the closing date for submissions, published well in advance. And yet:

Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie said the reason for its exclusion was “trivial”…

“Telstra provided its SME plan to the Government in early December and, in Telstra’s view, in accordance with the RFP (request for proposals),” said Mr McGauchie.

No, you fuckwit. The closing date was 26 November. Supplying information in “early December” means your submission was missing key elements. Morons.

Did you ask the teacher for an extension? Did you have a note from your mother? FFS! I stand by what I wrote in October: Get over yourself, Telstra!

If you can’t even provide your goddam submission on time, why the hell would we be stupid enough to give you $4.7B of our money?

I just upgraded this website to WordPress 2.7 and something has gone wrong with the tagging. I couldn’t be bothered figuring it out just now, so tags will have to be broken for a little while. You’ll live. [Update: OK, so it fixed itself. Mysteries abound.]

12 December 2008 by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

I know it’s been a few weeks since the last Stilgherrian Live, but there still won’t be one tonight. The health still ain’t there.

11 December 2008 by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

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