SMH is reporting that we have to get our t-shirts (and other protest material) approved by the police or risk facing arrest and/or a 5500 dollar fine. These draconian laws have come into effect to protect the “pilgrims” coming to Sydney on World Youth Day - a Catholic religious event being attended by the Pope.
I’m getting pretty damn sick of governments telling me what I can and can’t say in public places. Who’s with me?
You know what would be cool? If ten thousand of us showed up wearing this on a t-shirt:
But although there is a general backlash against these laws - none of our politicians or leaders are standing up against them. The religious right has too much of a hold over politics in Australia. Of course, it’s a slippery slope. And I’m beginning to think that pretty soon general freedoms of expression will be curtailed. After all - if they believe it is right to silence debate on such issues on the streets, what is logically stopping them from extending their suppression to the print media or to the internet?
The only other possibility is that there decision here isn’t completely arbitrary. Most people agree that it is the government’s responsibility to provide law and order - to protect the pilgrims from violence, to allow them to continue their worship of their deity. I’m in total agreement with this. But the next stage is to desire to protect them from offensive behaviour. This is the point at which we get on the slippery slope. Is handing out a condom offensive behaviour? The police are refusing to rule it out. Wearing a t-shirt is expression - that’s all. In and of itself, it’s not violent behaviour - it might be offensive depending on the content, but it doesn’t prevent anyone from communing with god. On the other hand, there have been racial vilification laws in place for some time now in this country. Can we interpret these new police laws in this sort of vein?
Well - there is one clear reason why not - it’s pretty clear in most cases what kind of language is racist. We all have pretty strong intuitions about it - and what’s more, these standards haven’t been arbitrarily imposed by the government. They very much reflected the views of a large proportion of the community. In this case however, there are no clear lines about what is offensive and what is not. The dutch learnt this the hard way. And so we reach the key question:
Again, have had little time to write a post. Have all sort of interesting things to write too. Hopefully events will permit soon.
I do want to announce however, that I have made it into the ranks of the truly nerdy. I have recently setup a dual boot ubuntu/xp on my main pute - and I gotta say Ubuntu looks absolutely fantastic on it. I’ve also recently acquired another monitor from my good friend Hamish. Here’s to you old friend. Enjoy it up in Paris for me.
Anyway - here’s a poor quality video of the setup with some of the compiz effects. Swish!
Haven’t had time to write anything particularly profound on this blog of late - way too much to do thesis wise. But I do have a cute kitty story.
One of my neighbors started feeding a feral cat that had been skulking around. It got used to the idea of free food and started hanging around more frequently. One day it brought this little kitten - left it in the garden in the pouring rain. My neighbor cleaned it up and gave it residence in an unused toilet out the back of our building. Mama cat liked the idea and now that’s where they both hang out.
Problem is - none of us wants a cat (well I want one - but am unable to take on the responsibility right now), and so kitty is going to have to be taken down to the cat protection society. Problem is that not all cats can find a home and they get put down when they can’t. Poor Kitty! But it’s young and cute - so maybe it has a chance. If anyone wants a kitty - then feel free to contact me via the contact form on this site.
Things are probably more dire for mama kitty. She’ll keep breeding - and so something will have to be done. She’s feral and isn’t approachable by humans - as you’ll see in the video. It’s unlikely someone will adopt her - as she’ll be quite a bit of work to tame.
This is an ad that GATA is currently running in the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been researching a post on this for quite some time and maybe will get to writing it soon. For now - check out the ad, and then check out http://gata.org to see what they are all about.
The recently elected Labor government in our blessed country is proceeding relentlessly in their quest to implement an isp-level net filter with trials soon to be conducted in Tasmania. Once again common sense goes out the window and we have a government ramming a solution down our throats that only the sectional religious interests actually want. But I’m not too worried. Why? Because the government is setting itself up for an immense embarrasment. And it’s forcing out into the open something that the rest of the country has been happy to keep under the rug. And what is this something? Well, it turns out - shock horror - a lot of us really, really like porn.
Just a short post - as I’m at an internet cafe on holiday.
I just wanted to say that the response from Anonymous to my post on their movement has been fantastic. Their ability to address the criticism contianed in the article and respond positively to it gives their movement credibility and I believe - strength. I wish them the very best for their day of protest on the 10th of Feb - and urge all to join in on the legitimate peaceful protests.
I was contacted by a member of anonymous and asked to post their email to my blog. So I now post this email in full:
Anonymous <***@***.com> wrote:
I’d just like to infrom you that “Call us many, for we are legion.” Is actually
from the bible, I forget what book and chapter. My now Atheist views have
somewhat dimmed my previous knowledge of the bible.
I would also like to comment on the astounding accuracy, bar the legion
reference, of your article. We have now moved on to Peaceful protesting and, as
The wise beard man calls it, Ghandi-tech. The support and advice of people like
you is much appreciated by anon and has been taken into account.
We will remove any anon who disrupt the proceedings on the 10th of February and
provide the police with evidence, thus hopefully discouraging anon from illegal
activities. The same tactic will also be helpful for uncovering $cientology
spies and eliminating them legally.
Anon would appreciate it very much if you posted this on your blog.
Many thanks, Anon.
The guy I was sharing a server with freaked out about my piece on Anonymous - and has insisted that I get off ‘his’ server before it got hacked. I was critical of anonymous to some degree - but am of the opinion that they are more reasonable than that, given especially that many of them have left positive and constructive comments. My friend did not share this view.
So I have had to change hosting. This has led to some problems - with the links to posts not working. Am working on the problem - but not sure when it will be fixed.
What should we make of this war on Scientology being conducted by the enigmatic internet group - Anonymous? (I hesitate to label them as anything beyond a ‘group’ since they themselves seem to try to resist various kinds of labels (such as hackers)) For those who don’t know, this group has popped up in the last week or two with a number of videos on youtube claiming that they were going to conduct a war against the Church Of Scientology. I’ll come to those videos in a moment. Subsequently, they were able to shut down the Church of Scientology website with a denial of service attack, an act designed to gain them media attention. If their boast to the effect that they are a force strong enough to destroy a powerful institution like the Church of Scientology is accurate, then we should be disturbed enough to ask a couple of very important questions. First we should ask after the nature of such a group. Second, what does it say about our culture that such a group should arise (obviously you need to answer the first to answer the second). And last, is the existence of such a group desirable? I’m going to examine these three questions in order. Anonymous - I believe is the product of a culture starved society that is losing faith in the institutions designed to protect its freedoms and its liberty.
I’m not sure if this is of interest to anyone - but I recently engaged with an extended discussion with a Ron Paul supporter on Reddit. A story was posted about Ron Paul winning a straw poll and various criticisms were made of Paul supporters for believing their own hype. Our discussion became an extended examination - and disagreement - on the nature of dogmatism. This isn’t exactly socratic splendor on offer here, but I think it nicely displays the huge gap of understanding that can exist between different parties.
My interlocutor Aletoledo has been quoted so you can distinguish who is speaking. The original discussion can be found here
Dmitry Davidov is an internet marketer and adsense guru (although he probably doesn’t agree with that label) that has achieved the dream of self-sufficiency by making money on the internet. In this interview I ask him about the means by which he has achieved his success and the kind of lifestyle this affords him. We also explore in depth some of the philosophic and ethical issues that concern the science of marketing. This is a must read for anyone looking to earn a living on the internet. As anyone who reads this blog might know, I don’t see eye to eye with Dmitry on many things (which makes for a great interview), but his answers are thoughtful, well considered, and insightful. My thanks to Dmitry for the time taken to give me this interview.
