down in the trenches of hell, digging madly: Part 1.

Before I lapse into yet another rant about what's yanking my chain this week, check out this article, Make-it-all Machine for Do-it-yourself Homeowners. If you're a fan of Transmetropolitan (by the venerable Mr Warren Ellis, who helpfully today has a link to a site that tells you exactly how to have sex with a dolphin. Seriously. You can't make thus stuff up. Best quote: "Q6) Where can I find a dolphin to mate with? A6) Aquariums are a bad choice, for many reasons ...") .... anyway, if you're a fan of aforesaid Transmetropolitan you'll be familiar with the Maker - a machine which you shove a bunch of raw materials into and which cheerfully spits out whatever item you need.

This is the future.

You don't buy products. You buy raw materials and designs, which both should, quite frankly, be dirt cheap. Hand in hand with your Maker is a Deconstitutor - where all your rubbish goes to be recycled into new raw materials for your Maker. Entire layers of the supply chain are wiped out - no more retail drones; no more couriers playing football with your $4000.00 LCD holo-TV; no more 4 year olds making Nikes in 3rd World sweat shops.

Nope, now the little bastards can work downt' mine.

But seriously folks, the internet has managed to bring about the efficiency of distribution - products go directly to the consumer and don't waste time sitting on shop shelves, possibly in entirely the wrong area relative to your customer. But we are still faced with the tyranny of distance and the uncertainty of demand. The Maker eliminates both those problems by taking manufacturing out of the retail equation (in so far as finished product is concerned - raw materials still have to travel, until such time as we develop our atom-strippers)

You still have the problem of design impetus (what the hell do the people want?), a problem that is greater or lesser depending of the cost of design. A design has to tell your Maker how to make the product, which could be no mean feat. The cost of programming this design could be what sinks the Maker as a product in it's early stages (that, and the overpricing of designs). Oh, but think of the possibilities: you go to bed at night. Your Maker connects with it's manufacturer and receives the latest firmware upgrade. Quietly the Maker builds the latest version of itself, plugs it in and then as a final act builds itself some legs and walks over to the Deconsitutor for recycling.

For the true believers: Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing, by Ralph C Merkle.

In fact, while you're on LiveScience you should probably check out this story. One word: Plasmons. Now why the hell weren't they a monster in Doctor Who?

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Is it true what they say about gerbils? ... yep, that dolphin thing is going to be theme tonight...

You always wanted to know, and now you're going to have nightmares about it:
Why do we have wax in our ears? Do roaches ever crawl in there?

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
We use only ten percent of our brains.

A number of amazing coincidences can be found between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

bad guys get the best quotes

"We thought it would be between us and the US, but it looks like the souls of the British buried in the Helmand after they were killed by the Afghan warrioer in the 19th century may be felling bored. Now they are calling their grandchildren to be reunited with them in hell."

- Mohammed Khwaja, a Taleban organiser (and with a name like that, probably part-time member of Jabba the Hutt's entourage). It's from Tuesday's Herald, but I can't find a link on their site.

Speaking of people who are going to hell, read Wired's Building the Internet Toll Road. And then say after me - "Those complete and utter toss-monkeys!"

slander

I'm sure you're like me, and instantly saw the comedic value of the Herald article titled: Green party 'doing Devil's work'. Said article begins:

The Greens are a tool of the Devil, says a pastor opposed to MP Sue Bradford's attempts to stop reasonable force being cited as a defence in child abuse cases.

... and I can just see the headline on page 1 tomorrow:

prince of lies denIEs links with Green Party, threatens defamation action: 'We only had one meeting where we may have discussed a leaflet', Satan says.

it's Ralph Wiggam crazy

It's the question on everyone's lips: Just exactly how much is the Catholic church being handed in a brown paper envelope by a CanWest operative wearing a trenchcoat and a black fedora in a dark and smoky bar on Thursday morning? It's the only reason I can think of for them starting this ridiculous campaign over the Bloody Mary Episode on C4. Those sneaky, sneaky, pin a tail on them and call them a weasel CanWest buggers. I can just see them sitting around the conference table a few weeks back in the middle of the Danish Cartoon furore cooking this whole cunning plan up; "... and then, once the Catholics have whipped themselves into the height of a martyred lather we'll reschedule the episode to play that very same Wednesday! It'll be priceless! Think of all the moooonnnneeeeey ...". The episode is guaranteed a large audience and the Boycott CanWest campaign doesn't get a chance to build, which is good, because advertisers and Churches have the same natural audience: the insufferably credulous.

Satan will be so proud.

Seriously though, the Catholic Church needs some decent strategists. Hell, I could have told them for free that trying to play the "Respect our Religion" card like the Muslims did was doomed to failure.

Firstly there is a natural tendency for a lot of people to feel sorry for the underdog - New Zealand Muslims can pull that off (pop recorded 2001 census: 23,631); The Catholic Church (pop recorded 2001 census: 486,012) ... weeeell, they have a little more difficulty. That, and we're still bitter over covering up your priests abusing children. And that whole Spanish Inquistion thing. And nuns, oh man some us still have nightmares about the nuns. Fuck it, while we're here, the Crusades pissed us off too.

Secondly, New Zealanders are conditioned to believe that Muslims a slightly backward; medievil in outlook; prone to suddenly explode in crowded marketplaces. Yes, I know that's unfair. I don't make popular prejudice, I'm just letting you know. Even liberal people aren't immune; yeah, we might make encouraging noises about tolerance and respect, but those are the same noises we use to placate children. God save us from the liberals. So, because a lot of New Zealanders think of Muslims as the equivalent of children (it's just a phase, they'll grow out of it. We did worse things at their age) we forgive a lot more. Catholics, on the other hand, are the equivalent of crotchety old people in diapers who complain about how Asians are ruining the country and how things haven't been the same since Muldoon stopped being PM. We aren't sympathetic, we just want to put you in a home.

Thirdly, it's a different medium. Print something in a serious newspaper and people will take it seriously. Print in a filthy right-wing neo-nazi rag read by 15 skinheads and their gimp and no one gives a rats ass. A serious news TV show (god knows we have none of those in New Zealand) will get attention and maybe piss some people off. C4? C4 is a home for the refugees of Generation X and Y who never could bring themselves to grow up. We don't take anything seriously, although you'd never guess from the length and vehemence of our arguments. We know everything that's wrong with the world and we're not entirely sure we care enough to do anything about. South Park normally washes over us and then disappears with the tide. Only now you've piqued our interest. We're going to paddle around in this one a little more.

Fourth ... well, South Park is funny. Danes aren't.

If nothing else the Catholic Church needs to be a bit more discriminating in choosing it's followers. Like David Pond, who in the letters to the NZ Herald asserted that "Women are being degraded by this type of garbage". Uh, no David, statues are being degraded. But maybe all those years in the Church have meant you can't tell the difference?

Then there's Leon Schollum. Leon says "As a Catholic I am appalled that Canwest Chief Executive Rick Friesen plans to run this South Park episode which I understand portrays Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, menstruating. Catholics and most other Christians believe Mary is the mother of Jesus and that Christ is the Son of God. Therefore an insult aimed at Mary is an insult aimed at God." Right, lets stop right there. Let's gloss over the logical error (let's get this straight, if I insult you, I'm also insulting your parents? Well, maybe if I call you a son of a bitch, but otherwise ...) - portraying Mary, Mother of God menstrating constitutes an insult? Holy fuck. Something that a goodly proportion of the world's population do once a month is an insult? Then why in hell did God design women's bodies to do it in the first place?

Look, I'm sorry to break it to you but Mary menstruated. I know, I was shocked too. But you know what? Mary also shagged a bit too. Horror. Mary, Mother of God, made the beast with two backs. God forbid, she may even have enjoyed it (one can only hope they were civilised about it all and maybe placed a sheet between her and Joesph). But that's not the worst of it ...

... Jesus masturbated. Yes, it's not mentioned in the bible, but let's face it - according to Luke 3 Jesus was 30 when he had his Holy Spirit incident and went walkabout in the desert. Do you seriously believe that he went all that time without spilling his seed? For God's sake people, he would have had nads the size of baseballs. So you'd better believe the Son of God spanked the monkey. Jesus came.

And if you believe the Catholics, He will come again.

List of religions offended gratuitiously so far:

• Catholics
• Muslims

Now I just need to do the Jews and the Scientologists and I'll have a full set!

While We're on the Subject:
Are bears more likely to attack menstruating women?

On a different topic: No Right Turn talks about the sentencing to jail of holocaust denier David Irving here. I tend to agree with NRT: Irving may be a lying, cancerous polyp on the flaccid penis of humanity, but the Austrian law is outdated even if it ever was defensible.

The Lost Posts: I'm trying to clean our some of my old unfinished posts. Blogger, helpfully tags your old drafts with the date you started the post rather than when it actually gets published. So, in case you miss it, here is Normal Transmission.

Quick question: Does anyone else yearn for the days when police would investigate a package full of white powder and immediately suspect it was cocaine?

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.

... said Abbie Hoffman. Unfortunately, he hadn't really counted on the recent rise of the First Militant Church Of The Blood-Crazed Cannibal Christ (This is my body, this is my blood, this is my eleven secret herbs and spices).

(Short interlude: In the book Fuck the System, Abbie Hoffman describes two diseases you can catch in New York ...

Clap (syphilis and gonorrhea) and Tasmanian Pig Fever (TPF) are two diseases you can easily pick up for free on the Lower East Side. One, the Clap, you catch, and the other, TPF, catches you ... Tasmanian Pig Fever is a disease common to the Lower a variety of reasons. Let's face it, the Lower East Side is a ghetto and getting busted by a cop is common in any American ghetto ... The TPF is the riot control squad in New York and is called out to handle many street demonstrations.

Charming ...)

Anyway, the discussion for today is war, or more specifically New Zealand at war, or even more specifically The Invasion of New Zealand. In the next 50 years who is likely to attempt to invade us and why? The US? Australia? Indonesia? The Ravening Islamic Hordes? The Ravening Christian Hordes? The Ravening Jedi Census Phenomenon Hordes? Which will it be, Resources or Religion?

Or has economics superceded politics by other means? Is the US just a slow learner?

Expand and Discuss (25 points)

"A man's greatest moment in life is when his enemy lays vanquished, his village aflame, his herds driven before you and his weeping wives and daughters are clasped to your breast."
- Gengis Kahn

history never repeats

From Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit and Conflict by Edwin Black. Excerpts from pages 214-217.

As an occupying power, Great Britain declared it had come to liberate Mespotamia from the Turks. "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerers or enemies, but as liberators," proclaimed the generals upon entering Baghdad. Instead, Great Britain suddenly found itself almost at war with the local population. Once again, [Civil Administrator, Arnold] Wilson was the central character, wielding oppressive civil regulations. Under Wilson's direction, families were routinely evicted and their homes requisitioned by occupying forces and administrators, with the token rent often less than satisfying. Piped water was restricted to the burgeoning administrative and military sectors, depriving even established merchants of Basra and Baghdad of their established basics. Large numbers of ordinary residents were dragooned as minimally paid compulsory laborers for British work projects, often pulling them away from fields, flocks, or shops. Freedom of movement was greatly curtailed, purportedly to preempt Turkish spies, but this practice continued long after the Ottoman threat had been purged. The local population bitterly resented these instrusive measures, which redefined their daily life.

The British found numerous sheikhs willing to be co-opted to prop up their unpopular occupation. They were empowered to collect taxes in their area and to settle disputes with the force of law, not according to tribal traditions but based on an imported Indian code, which itself adapted from English legal precepts ... Petty abuses and high-handedness by Wilson's new strongmen were common. Both the populace and the British openly considered these new boss sheikhs to be little more than stooges. One prominent reform-minded British official of the Indian government who later joined the Baghdad administration readily explained in 1916, "Once a sheik has to rely on [the] government for support, he has lost the sympathy of his tribesmen." Refeudalizing Mesopotamia effectively restored the corrupt ways of the sultan that had prevailed prior to the young Turk reforms.

.. when the power of the purse retreated, seething outrage erupted. For example, on January 28, 1918, Captain W.M. Marshall was installed as the new governor of Najaf. During preceeding months, the city had been mutinous. British patrols had been shot at, an airplane was almost downed by gunfire, and government offices were attacked ... On March 19, timed with the Moslem Nawruz festivities, assassins dressed as policemen entered Marshall's home and killed him. Punjabi guards were summoned to hunt down the assailants, but insurgents fought them as well. When the central killers could not be found, the British blockaded Shiite Najaf - nothing in, nothing out. Wilson and the military demanded the surrender of the murderers ... until those conditions were satisfied, Wilson ruled, the residents would suffer a total "food-and-water supply cut off" ... He wanted the killers - or everyone could just starve. With food and water dwindling, many local sheikhs and ordinary citizens joined the rebellion, or strongly considered it, out of a sheer survival instinct ... After weeks of seige, Najafi food supplies held, but the water was almost gone - this approaching a summer that would reach 112 degrees. Finally, by May 4, 1918, quarter by quarter, the town had been starved into submission. Najaf surrendered the culprits.

In recalling the episode, Wilson wrote these words: "Najaf has never again been a source of serious anxiety to the government of the country."

what the hell's a "meme"?

... it sounds like a communicable disease, and really Span should have paid more attention in Health Classes (didn't they teach you that boys are dirty?).

Anyway ...

Four jobs I've had:

1. Newspaper delivery slave
2. Cleaning slave (and goddamn some of you people are seriously unclean. Especially doctors for some reason)
3. Bureaucratic overlord
4. ... actually, that's it. I guess I tend to stupify easily ...
   

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Fight Club (Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.)
2. Miller's Crossing (Up is down, black is white, and nothing is what it seems)
   
3. Donnie Darko (the original, not the Director's Cut that completely butchered the soundtrack)
   
4. The Thing (Man is the warmest place to hide)
   

Four places I've lived:

1. Southside
2. South-Centralside
3. Centralside
4. Westside
   

Four TV shows I love:

1. Doctor Who
2. Firefly
   
3. South Park
4. X-Files
5. Blake's 7
   

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Anaheim
2. Pauaniu
3. Pahia
4. Wellington
   

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Sweet & Sour Pork on fried rice. Except no bastard makes good SSP anymore.
2. Lamb shanks.
3. Roast Pork Loin, with the crackling, sans apple sauce.
4. Garlic Bread. It's not a dish you say? That just shows you lack fucking initiative.
   

Four sites I visit daily:

1. YoJoe Forums
2. Public Address
   
3. Snopes
4. No Right Turn
   

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Ohio
2. New York (I haven't been to either, but I'm tentatively planning to visit)
   
3. Wellington
4. The bach of the guy who just won Big Wednesday (oooh, that bastard).
   

normal transmission

The problem with blogging is that somewhere, somehow, someone has said it better than you could and faster.

You bastards.

The problem with my blogging is that I tend to jot down some paragraphs, then get bored and wander off to look at the pretty lights unless I'm shackled down. So this is one of my never-quite-finished-posts that I started a few weeks back and that I know I'm never going to complete ...

Right, so, in no particular order these buggers have said some stuff that made me think:

Maria von Trapp: Heavens Rewards - although I the best bit I thought was in the comments:

MVT: who exactly is saying that these cartoons have influenced society's views of Muslims? Only the reactions to the cartoons will do that.

Bingo. The cartoons were caricatures of Western views of Islam/Muslims. They don't tell us anything new or interesting. Some of the actions of some of the protestors (and some nations - hey, I'm looking at you Iran. Yeah, have a funny-holocaust cartoon competition, that way you'll occupy all the moral high-ground) - well they reinforce our already rather negative views of the Middle East and of adherents of Islam. These are the things doing damage - they make you all look like you're stuck in the greasy mire of the European Dark Ages and you're quite happy to wallow there for a while (cf the protest march in Auckland, that seemed pretty reasonable and restrained).

What I'd quite like to see is the views of lapsed Muslims or relaxed Muslims - you know, the equivalent of Christians who only go to Church at Christmas and Easter, and have plenty of sex before marriage with condoms and don't feel guilty and are really quite comfortable with teh Gay people. Where are those Muslims, and do they have a blog? I know they are out there, but they aren't in the news media often for some reason - of that's right, because they aren't blowing shit up, so they're no reinforcing our stereotypes. Hmm, maybe here's one here. At least Apathy Jack is fighting the good fight.

On the amusing side of things, Keith Ng channels Matt Nippet and himself in Goddammit, Holy See Reports 4Q Loss, and Blasphem-A-Thon. Whatever happened the Matt Nippet anyway?

Public Address is such fertile ground. Russell Brown has several posts on the subject, but I like Makes Waitangi Look Innocuous, Doesn't It? the best. Intriguingly enough, the link to the cartoons on Stuff.co.nz doesn't work anymore. What could it mean? But the bit that set me thinking was this:

... here's where I part company with No Right Turn. I do not think that marching the public street with signs threatening to behead or otherwise murder your fellow citizens, promising "Europe's 9/11" or a "new Holocaust" constitutes free speech, no matter what offence has been taken. The British police told reporters that they were photographing those involved. I would hope that they were also following them home and keeping them under surveillance henceforth. You lose a certain right to privacy when you incite the murder of those around you.

I'm of two minds here. I certainly agree that if you make extreme statements in public about mass killings, then the Police should be taking a good look at your weirdo ass. But should you be charged with a crime and put in jail for it? The oft-quoted restriction on free-speech is the "shouting fire in a movie theatre", where misuse of free speech could lead to deaths from panic (presuming of course, that they isn't a fire in said movie theatre). But does this really apply to inflammatory statements on banners at street protests? I seem to remember in my younger days requesting that a certain Vice-Chancellor of a certain University that I may have been attending at the time be roasted on a spit for daring to raise fees. We had a chant and everything. It was quite catchy. It certainly shouldn't have been taken seriously, and hopefully no one got too offended by it. Is it all about the context? A protest in New Zealand is to be judged differently to a protest in London is to be judged differently to a protest in Syria (for one thing we end up burning slightly different things at the end ...).

Speaking of NRT, he links to some Fisk on the issue: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Bobby makes a good point that we in the West aren't always the doyens of Free Speech that we preen ourselves to be (protests about The Last Temptation of Christ, various anti-semitism initiatives - Hard News also makes a similar point about the Virgin in the Condom not a few years back).

Weird Thing: Blogspot's spell-check doesn't recognise "blogging". ???

normal transmission will resume momentarily

... there's lots of interesting things going on at the moment, sure. But the bloody Japanese keep trying to invade North Korea, and the Mayans just discovered nukes. Which is making it hard for me to invade Scandinavia, on my way to Britain, where maybe I can bottle up the Mayans in America, leaving me some time to take care of the Egyptians, thereby dominating the entirety of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

People just don't appreciate how difficult it is to take over the world these days ...

things I'd sell my soul for

That's the Chap Mei produced A-10, for the 4in action figure market. To some crazy people, like me, it's worth it's weight in gold. Unfortunately, I'm somewhat short in the gold department, and the market worth of undying gratitude is quite low, so I haven't got one of these. Yet.

In truth, the buggers are hard to find anywhere. The only one I've heard of for sale has got up to US$60 and that had been sourced from Malaysia (regrettably - just out of my reach). Funnily enough they've been seen on websites in Eastern Europe ... but my Czech is a little rusty so I'm not going to have much luck ordering from them. Maybe when Span's over there she might keep an eye out for them (that's right Span, I want you to go into every toy shop from Russia to London. What's so unreasonable about that?).

But seriously people, if you do happen to be in the Warehouse, or a toy shop, or a $2 shop and you see one of these - please contact me through the comments.

(Praise to AkshayLakhiani for the picture)

ixnay on the lasphemybay

My last post was primarily about freedom of speech - i.e. can newspapers, etc, blaspheme as a matter of right. And, as far as I am concerned they can (the crimes act, of course, begs to differ, but screw the law).

I was, however, silent on the subject of whether in this particular case it was a good idea, or even a laudable thing to do; and in this particular case I think it wasn't a good idea.

Not because of the potential reaction, although a good newspaper should have those things in mind. And most do, if only from the point of view of "will we lose/gain readers because of this?"; but beyond this base level, newspapers should as a matter of good sense not be publishing things like "the accused child molester lives in street X, at number Y, yes, that's right, the white house with the yellow fence - and by the way, 100m down the road is a shop you can buy pitchforks and flaming torches from". It's just not sensible. (There's a valid discussion in here about how much blood would be on the hands of a newspaper that did such a thing, but maybe that's for another day).

No, the primary reason why this isn't laudable or a good idea is that why the events overseas and the debate and conflagration that has ensued are important, the cartoons themselves are not. They're not even very good cartoons and sure as hell aren't all that funny. The primary reason 2 NZ newspapers have published the cartoons seems to be to prove that they can. Which is dumb, since they just as easily could have published an editorial saying: "We can print these, but we choose not to. There is no tangible value in this instance to printing them, except maybe to encourage the National Front, who have been looking very wan and pale lately, and may need a laugh or possibly jobs. Maybe when we get some funny or relevant cartoons we will".

Of course, we can contrast this the recent decision by C4 to continue with their plans to screen the South Park Episode featuring a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from it's ass. And here's a full plot synopsis for your blaspheming pleasure. Actually, to be honest, I can't see what the Catholic Church is at angry at. As far as I can see the Virgin Mary (God rest her soul) isn't being insulted - it's the morons who believe that statues bleeding is a miracle of god rather than a scam that are being insulted. But, by definition those folks ain't too smart so it's understandable that they might get a mite confused.

C4 has a right to play the episode. And it will be a good thing when they do. Why? Because it will be bloody funny. And if, in 12 months there's a South Park episode making fun of the Prophet Mohommed then that will be good too, because it will be freaking hilarious. And, what's even better, South Park won't be on a high-horse crowing about how they are defending press freedom against the muslim hordes: they will purely be indulging in the fine art of satire.

So, lesson for today: Muck-raking with pretensions of grandure? bad. Satire? good to the last drop.

Addendum: I should probably point out that I think that it is idiotic to cut trade with countries whose free press publishes the offending cartoons. Um, do you guys need a definition of freedom of press? oooh, here's one. If you want a meaningful and relevant protest, don't buy advertising in those papers. Right? Sorted.

Stupid things people say: This one's from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry:

"We reject the false pretext of freedom of press for publishing these caricatures since freedom of expression does not mean absence of any values, ethics or laws,"

Riiiiight. Someone really needs to go back to their political philosophy class on that one ...

Other People talking about this stuff:
Yellow Peril: Between Mohammed and Monsoon Poon (stolen from Span)
Jack Yan: The Mohammed cartoons—and what they say about western civilization

god does not play al-zār with the universe

The ground has already been well-travelled, but that just means I can steal other people's ideas as my own (eg No Right Turn's and DPF's). So let's have the keywords:

• Danish
• Cartoons
• Muhammed
• Free Speech
• Waffles

Or, we can sum it all up in two words: Hysterical. Overreaction. From everyone.

Right, first up, if the Danish want to publish cartoons making fun of religion, in this case Islam, then all power to them. It's a Free World after all (okay, so it's not, but let's just file that under lies-to-children for the moment, keep smiling, move along). If everyone else in the Judeo-christian world wants to do it - well great. Super. Love ya all. Send the funny ones my way.

Cuts Both Ways.

If muslims want to march up and down with posters and banners and burn effigies (heck, I've burned a few effigies in my day - or at least stood around looking innocent while other people burned effigies - and the only harm that does is when you get poisoned by police fire extinguishers) to protest said cartoons making fun of Islam - well, that's just super too. Because, you know, that's free speech too.

And we like Free Speech very muchly.

If you want to go further, and get your Government to call their Government and say, "hey man, that shit ain't cool. We ain't going to buy any more of your windmills." - well, that's cool too. You're going to miss out on some sweet windmills by the way ... but sometimes you've just got to go with the principle of the thing. I can respect that even if I think that you are over-reacting and falling for obvious bait. After all, we call up the Japanese occasionally and ask them nicely to stop hunting them poor whales for your "scientific" "experiments" with whales and "wasabi". And they ever so sweetly agree, and sure they give up - but wait: do you hear the lambs screaming, Clarice? Do you hear them screaming?

Protests are fun, bonding experiences. It Takes a Village to Raise A Protest. We all get to have a bit of exercise in the city, yell at the top of our lungs while not drunk, and meet some nice policepeople who want to hold our hands. And when the National Front or Destiny Church have a protest, we can go protest too! (some people get confused: "you're denying my right to free speech!!". Nope. I've counterposing your speech with my speech. Free Speech also means Free Reply, usually at high volume, and sometimes with hand-gestures). Hell, not a few of us turned up to protest without knowing what the subject was (what are we protesting for? Gay Penguins? Great. Can we occupy something?).

We can all hope that free speech is fair, and tolerant and respectful, and happy-clappy joy-joy fairy tree-blossom. We can, dare I say it, hope for that big, bad word, reasonableness (not quite as big and bad as that king of words, disestablishmentarianism). But we don't have any right to it, and if you go around expecting it habitually you are likely to not have a very happy life.

Now where it all goes fig-shaped, is when you say "you can't say that", or it's slightly more ugly and stupid inbred and drooling hill-billy cousin, "if you say that I'll kill you".

That shit is cold.

... if you do that no one likes you. You're the big cry-baby in the corner that no one will play with anymore, not even the kid with the constant cold who smells really bad. Or the kid in the sandpit who won't let anyone else play with the bucket and spade, and everytime you try to use them calls you "antiseptic" or something, which is confusing because you don't need any medicine.

So stop it. Grow the fuck up. God doesn't need you to fight his wars, in fact he never wanted you to fight his wars in the first place, he just had the misfortune to create humans, who created sex so that they would have something to fight over.

In fact - God? It's me, Frank. No, the other one. We give up. Give Palestine to the Whales. Um, and you might want to to give them opposable thumbs.

They'll need them to drive the tanks.

MiG 31 "Firefox"

For those of you smart people who surf the interweb with Mozilla Firefox, a new release (version 1.5.0.1) is available here. Or, if you are already on version 1.5 your browser is probably bugging you about it right now ...

and here's a site full of pictures of the (fictional) MiG 31 Firefox. Ain't she pretty?

illegal things

Back when the the Civil Unions debate was raging I got a powerful urge to go read the 1955 Marriage Act. God only knows why, but I'm sure I had a good reason at the time, possibly involving an impassioned letter to the editor or to check whether I could marry Bert and/or Ernie. While the Act was strangely silent on such a union, it did give me a whole list of people I can't marry:

• Grandmother
• Grandfather's wife
• Wife's grandmother
• Father's sister
• Mother's sister
• Mother
• Stepmother
• Wife's mother
• Daughter
• Wife's daughter
• Sons' wife
• Sister
• Son's daughter
• Daughter's daughter
• Son's son's wife
• Daughter's son's wife
• Wife's son's daughter
• Wife's daughter's daughter
• Brother's daughter
• Sister's daughter

... which just goes to show, not only were the drafters of our laws thorough, they also had a great, um, depth of imagination.

I mean, seriously, your Son's, son's wife?

Good lord.

terrifying space monkeys

... so the venerable Don Brash is supposed to be talking about immigration at Orewa tonight. According to the equally venerable New Zealand Herald, Brash is

likely tonight to note that immigration can be beneficial to New Zealand and to avoid making any definitive statements that clearly commit National to a change in position.
But his suggestion that Western ideals such as personal liberty and New Zealand's belief in the importance of a secular society could be compromised by immigration reveals the party is at least contemplating taking a tougher line.

Actually, I support Don on this one. Of course, to be consistant, the first thing he'll have to do is deport Brian Tamaki, anyone who supports Destiny Church, and oooh, the entirety of the Exclusive Brethren. And ban Christian groups from using schools to proselytize with a sem-official stamp, and censor our students' access to the web. Heck, maybe you could repeal the law on blasphemous libel (section 123 of the Crimes Act). And remove the prayer from opening of Parliament; and from Council meetings.

Because, you know, if he doesn't support all those things, then one might just have to conclude that what he didn't like was people who weren't Christian.

And surely that wouldn't be right, would it?

What Wikipedia says about Secularism:

As secularism is often used in different contexts, its precise definition can vary from place to place. In philosophy, secularism is the belief that life can be best lived by applying ethics, and the universe best understood, by processes of reasoning, without reference to a god or gods or other supernatural concepts. Secularism in this sense was coined by George Jacob Holyoake and is one of the precursors of modern secular humanism ... In government, secularism means a policy of avoiding entanglement between government and religion (ranging from reducing ties to a state religion to promoting secularism in society), of non-discrimination among religions (providing they don't deny primacy of civil laws), and of guaranteeing human rights of all citizens, regardless of the creed (and, if conflicting with certain religious rules, by imposing priority of the universal human rights).

Expand and Discuss. (25 points)

achieving serenity

It was a good long weekend, not least because at the beginning of it I got packages containing Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated, a near mint 1985 Ferret, 3 Shock Vipers, 3 Crimson Shadow Guards, and 2 Cobra Troopers.

And Serenity.

I came late to the Firefly party. I'm not much of a Joss Whedon fan, and by that I mean I haven't seen much of his work, but more through laziness than malice; and what I did see was motivated more by having the hots for Sarah Michelle Geller than genuine critical interest (I'm over that now, whenever I have impure thoughts about SMG I turn my mind to God: oh yeah God, take it all off; yeah, yeah, shake it God, ooh you're making me burn up; ooooooh Gooooood ...)

Ahem.

Firefly is the best damn dramatic TV series I have seen for goddamn ever; well, X-Files at least. And Fox, official representatives of Iblis on earth, cancelled it before the end of the first season. If I were to be charitable I might say that they cancelled it so it could never go bad; but fuck charity, we all know that Rupert Murdoch will soon be in hell spit-roasted on Satan's slowly rotating ... ah hell, you've all been here long enough to fill in the rest. You can read a synopsis of the malarky on one of the many fan sites, like Can't take the sky.

Like X-Files, I think the key to Firefly is the humour. But it is a substantially different humour. In The X-Files humour served to puncture the opressive paranoia and paralysing seriousness of the main characters that threatened to weigh the whole project down; not for nothing are the best episodes complete pisstakes of the whole enterprise - like Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space', Chinga and War of the Coprophages.

But in Firefly the humour is largely character-based. The characters are funny people. Not clown funny, or sitcom funny, but funny, you know, like those people you know who can give you coughing fits so bad you have to suck on your asthma inhaler and your head hurts like you just missed an anurysm by a hair: that kind of funny. Now combine that with it being an Action Drama Sci-Fi Western, with a shake of Blake's 7, but without so much of the facism. That's Firefly. And at it's core is a concept that you don't here much about these days in our pursuit of realpolitik: Honour.

Serenity is a coda to Firefly, and a damn fine example of how one should make a film out of a TV series. It effectively stands on it's own two feet, without dumbing down the plot or wading through exposition for the newbies. The action is great without overshadowing the story. The space battle is a miracle of decent CGI and great pseudo-amcam camera-work (Battlestar Galactica has a similar feel to it's dogfights). The villan is a metaphor for America (if you don't believe me, listen to the DVD commentary and FF to Joss Whedon's description of The Operative; he doesn't say it but he doesn't need to say it). We get to see Jewel Staite again, who, I may have mentioned before, is a Stone-Cold Fox.

So. Go out and buy Firefly and Serenity. Set aside a long weekend. Snuggle up to your sweetheart on the couch. Maybe fry up some of Ma Stupid's vittles. Surely you won't regret.

... well, maybe the vittles. But I told you not to use so much garlic.

Stuff I'm surfing:
The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed, by David Wong. Even though I really hate his frigging pop-ups, and I kind of like the Star Wars prequels (I liked the politics, dammit!!) ... still very, very true.

Suburban myths - From the Skeptic's Dictionary. Bugger me, there's 74 of them, from Most medical treatments have never been clinically tested, to Vaccination of children with the (MMR) vaccine to prevent measles, mumps and rubella causes autism.

the strangest thing

normally when you are too lazy to clean out the frypan from cooking pork chops, and then use it the next night to cook a different meat dish, the results can be ... unpredictable. Last night however, the ubiquitous chicken thighs were a treat. True, I did douse them in sweet chilli sauce and garlic, and then fry it all up with thick potato slices, but really it all turned out a million times better than could be reasonably be expected.

A word of warning though - go sparingly on the garlic. It's a killer.

But you can use as much sauce as you like.

كلّك قاعدة ينتسب إلى نا

Right, prediction time for all you amateur foreign affairs wonks (if you are actually a foreign affairs expert - push off. we don't want yer kind here with yer fancy-speak tryin' to steal our womenfolk).

What's going to happen in the Middle East in the short to medium (say 5-10 years)?

The reason I ask is the two people getting the most screen-time figuratively both seemed to have failed at their stated aims.

• George W Bush - Democracy isn't flowering - and if it did the DEA would probably confiscate it.
• Osma Bin Laden - The invasion and subsequent insurgency in Iraq have not lit the touch-paper of Arab muslim rebellion, overturning all those corrupt running dogs of the decadent Western Imperialists and driving the Israelis into the sea (we in New Zealand prefer to drive Israelis to the sea, you know, have a gawk at the view, light up a bbq and maybe have a swim).

I mean, if those two can't ignite region-wide change, who or what can?

I guess the most fertile areas for change are (in no particular order) Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. My feelings on each:

• Iraq: I can see it going two ways. Option 1 is a fractious nation that ends up splitting within 5 years into 3 seperate entities in a bloody civil war. Worst case scenario is a full-on proxy war influenced by Saudi Arabia (for the Sunni), Iran (for the Shia) and Turkey (against the Kurds); which way the Americans go is anyone's guess. Option 2 is a fractitious democracy that is overthrown by a military coup - Baathism by any other name, and possibly supporting overtly one or other religious group (it is hard to see a secular group taking power at this stage in the game, which is a shame). Worst case scenario is another Algeria ... or maybe we could have option 3, which is a happy and peaceful federation with occasional Quebec tendencies.
  
• Iran: Latest intelligence reports say that Iran could have delieverable nuclear weapons within 3 years, which means either a.) they already have the bomb, and have used it in various small wars already; or b.) Iran doesn't actually exist at all, and the CIA has been mistakenly been using the Star Wars edition Risk board all the time. Actually, up until a short time ago Iran had been quietly tip-toeing towards being a progressive democratic state ... but shit happens and the local equivalent of pCms are back in charge. Anyway, I think the nuclear question will keep dragging on for a long time. The US domestically has no stomach for further action in the area in the short-term, and realistically the window for military action is only open as long as the Iranians don't have Teh Bomb. The Israelis on the other hand ... they're a mad bunch of crackers at the best of time; they're also a smart bunch of mad crackers, so anything is possible - except another airstrike. Too far, too many targets, too much hostile airspace ... unless they stock up on Predator drones and launch covertly from one of Iran's Northern neighbours. No, if the Israelis are involved you can be sure the plan will be so clever you could pin a tail on it and call it a persian squirrel.
• Palestine: More of the same. Sharon was no Nixon, and he didn't quite make it to China. The Israeli/Palestinian issue has been going on for so long you could turn it into a theme-park and charge admission. I'm beginning to think they deserve each other ...

On to less serious questions ... take a look at this blog, Radio Free Taikonaut. Scope out the picture of the author and tell me this:


Isn't that James K. Baxter, back from the dead and prepared to punish us for our sins?

You bet your ass it is.

Unfortunately, if you inquire about him sending you a free taikonaut he tends to get a bit shirty.

ps 25 points if you can translate the title of this post. Another 10 points if know what it is a reference to, 30 points if you can explain the hidden double meaning, and 75 points if you refrain from calling me something we'll both regret for being such a nerd.

the electric frypan of love, Part II

• crack an egg into a medium sized bowl.
• add a splash of soy sauce, a few shakes of garlic salt, ditto lemon pepper, and a few strinkles of cajun spices if you're feeling lucky.
• add two splashes of sweet chilli sauce.
• Grate half a large carrot and dump that in too.
• Finally add half a large onion, finely chopped.
• Mix.
• Throw in 500g of prime beef mince. The egg mixture acts a binder as well as a flavouring, so make sure to mix thoroughly.
• Roll balls of mince and coat with bread-crumbs.
• Put your electric frypan on about 6 or 7, add a little bit of oil and cook the rissoles until crispy-brown. Turn often, and don't forget to brown the sides!
• Eat with vegetables to your own taste. Instead of tomato sauce I recommend making an half 'n half concoction of bbq sauce and sweet chilli sauce.
  

If you were paying attention to my first electric frypan of love, you will begin to see why I'm not a terribly good cook. Yup, half the ingredients are exactly the same. In fact, except for unadorned meat dishes (you know, chuck the lamb chop/steak/pork slices in and cook the hell out of), I can't think of any complex dish I make without sweet chilli sauce. Christ, even my macaroni cheese uses a mixture of lemon and sweet chilli tunas.

What would Freud say?

ps while checking out the spelling of macaroni I found out that the word also refers to:

1. A well-traveled young Englishman of the 18th and 19th centuries who affected foreign customs and manners.
2. A fop.

Who would have thunk it?

give me a minute; i just need to irony my shirts

As I discussed in Loot, I picked up Collapse by Jared Diamond for Christmas. I finished reading it a while back, but one thing or another stopped me from posting about it (the one thing was laziness; the another is a propensity for being proud of talking totally bollocks). After reading Collapse I am convinced of several things:

1. We're fucked. The world is going to slowly decline into subsistence living or medievalism; in all likelihood it will start happening within our own lifetime (if we're very lucky we might die before it gets too bad).
   
2. We might have the slight satisfaction of watching Australia slide into anarchy first.

Three words people: Australian. Boat. People. If the sea voyage doesn't kill them, the irony certainly will.

Here's what Diamond has to say about Australia:

Ecologically, the Australian environment is exceptionally fragile, the most fragile of any First World country except perhaps Iceland. As a consequence, many problems that could eventually become crippling in other First World countries ... such as overgrazing, salinization, soil erosion, introduced species, water shortages, and man-made droughts ... have already become severe in Australia.

He goes on to say:

Australia is the most unproductive continent; the one whose soils have on average the lowest nutrient levels, the lowest plant growth rates and the lowest productivity. That's because Australian soils are mostly so old that they have become leached of their nutrients by rain over the course of billions of years.

And further:

Australia's first farmers were inadvertently mining their soils for nutrients. Thereafter, nutrients have had to be supplied artificially in the form of fertilizer, thus increasing agricultural production costs compared to those in more fertile soils overseas.

What does it all mean? As the global system degrades all those agricultural inputs that Australia needs to sustain crop production will become harder to source and more expensive. The same system degradation will affect the importation of food. And eventually those frequent droughts will equate not to loss of export income but loss of life. Presto! Instant Mad Max-land.

Before we get too comfortable at the thought of our cousins being repelled by the Indonesian navy, we should remember that a smaller world will cause problems for us as well - for starters, when most people's attention is focused on where the next meal is coming from, the labour value of bureaucrats like me will fade to nought; hell, they'll probably burn us at the stake as witches. New Zealand does has an advantage in the agriculture stakes over Australia because our happy slice of volcano alley gets refertilized on a regular basis (on a global timescale anyway); but I'm not sure the land will support all of us for long without inputs like fertilizers (weed killers are not so much of a problem; with the death of bureaucracy there will be a glut in the labour market of people willing to spend their days scrabbling around on their knees in the dirt).

Survivalists should probably start considering buying some land (preferably near a river or a stream) and learning how to grow crops without inputs (or at least inputs you can't improvise from the land around you). If you can site yourself close to coal country all the better - trees are too valuable as a nutrient source for the land to be used for firewood. And as pointed out by Bruce Simpson on Aarvark, your local landfill could be a goldmine for metals and other useful stuff that will be scarce after the long slow apocalypse.

Of course, it may never happen - in which case you've got a nice place in the country to retire to.