Cereal killers

I'm going to patent a procedure where one inserts a finger into one's mouth, presses lightly on the back of the throat and captures the result in a small plastic bucket. Because it's sure to make me a fortune in years to come.

Go read this article. And then tell other people too. Because:

While groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreeCulture and Downhill Battle are growing, intellectual property issues still don't command the same kind of attention as other progressive mainstays. But if the public doesn't start agitating for reform, Americans are going to find themselves increasingly at the whim of the large corporations who own the ideas that form the foundation of the American economy.

Intellectual property may not be as sexy as Angelina or Brad, but it'll screw you in places you don't even know you had. So do something.

Stop the presses!

I had actually planned to take a couple of days off from blogging, reading news, checking email etc but I just had to post a story about this. It couldn't wait. And I couldn't wait to tell you.

Naomi Watts, human lead in the recently released King Kong film, Australian actress (born in England but we claimed her after she became famous), friend of Nicole Kidman...

... are you ready for it?...

... sure now?...

OK. I'll tell you. She visited a herbalist. YES! In Surry Hills. I can't believe it. I've heard on the grapevine that she has been known to put petrol in her car from time to time, but that may still be a rumour. That she visits restaurants and has a mobile phone is certain. People have taken pictures of it. And anyway, "sources" close to the star have confirmed it.

This is almost as huge news as the time I heard about Hillary Duff walking into a Starbucks and ordering a machiato. Who'd have known?

I probably won't blog again until new year unless something really important happens. Like Nicole running up to the shop for milk.

So until then, have a safe and happy Xmas. And make sure you spend spend spend. Cos that's what it's all about.

Credit to vee8 for the photo

I never metaphor I couldn't milk

Here's a little piece I stole from Kevin Marks who stole it from Susan Cheevers.

It's late at night, and you are in your homecube cruising auction sites for furniture on the Internet. You know you shouldn't be doing this because according to the law we must avert our eyes from other people's furniture unless we have bought a licence. You want to go to sleep, but you can't because those same laws prevented you from ever getting a bed and you don't know what one looks like. Then you see something out of the corner of your eye. What the hell is it? It's some weird woman with white paint on her face pursing her lips and holding her finger in front of them. She's wearing a stripey shirt. Oh my god. It must be a mime artist; I heard about those when I was a kid. What's she doing now? She sits on the floor, lies on her side, puts her hands under her head and closes her eyes. Is that what you do in a bed? Can I get arrested for watching this?

WTF?? She's got the same breasts as me. How can that be? And look, she's rubbing her nose just like Grandad used to when he told lies. That can't be right?! She can't be entitled to that - it genetically belongs to me. By law. That's outrageous! What a shame that the copyright for the electric chair was bought by that freakshow Amnesty bunch of weirdos.

I raise my hands to my breasts in alarm. Thank God. They're still there. Well at least I'm not disfigured. I paid a fortune for those.

Thx to Bright Tal for the photo

Off the rails

I hope those bloody New York transport authority workers go back to their thankless, subterranean, service industry jobs pretty soon ‘cos I just can’t afford the consequences. I wasn’t there either yesterday and I’ve just heard that the penalty for not turning up is two days pay for each day you’re not there. Shit. I must owe them millions by now.

But you’ve got to admire a law that allows the employer to earn twice as much as they pay you. Hell, someone should set up a franchise! I’m more surprised they didn’t encourage these people to strike sooner. And more often.

And for what? For conditions they don’t deserve, even though they’ve already got them. Clearly they’ve had them too damn long.

All across this city, workers who have no pensions and who must pay huge premiums for health insurance hear about transit workers fighting to preserve pensions at 55 and employer-paid health insurance. They fall prey to the Bloomberg line of "greedy workers."

These greedy workers are just trouble. And, by the sounds of it, in dire need of constant surveillance.

Local 100 President Roger Toussaint has repeatedly complained that the MTA issued a phenomenal 15,000 disciplinary actions against his members last year.

I just hope he got disciplined for complaining like that. It's not his place to complain.

So it’s good to see some objective journalism being practiced in these highly emotional times, such as the cub reporter who penned this:

The Transport Workers Union has elected to illegally strike against the citizens of the City of New York and all of those who live in the region and need to travel into the five boroughs. This is an outrageously irresponsible action and a terrible miscalculation.

Until then I hadn’t quite realised that the strike was against citizens, let alone the citizens of the City of New York who have suffered enough for one lifetime. That's so un-American, isn't it? So I say cut to the chase; call it the urban "terrorism" it is and get the bloody SWAT team in there pronto. And while we wait for the sound of Humvee’s and helicopters to arrive, let’s hear some more from the cub journalist:

The key concept here is that such a strike is unlawful. The State Legislature, under the Taylor Law, properly set up a procedure to protect the public from the unfair power a municipal union can wield against the people of a city. But in so doing, it allowed for other procedures, including arbitration, to settle matters when they become stalemated. If anything, municipal unions have been treated fairly under the Taylor Law. The union is now being held in contempt.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the negotiations, it is clearly necessary for public agencies, such as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to get a better handle on rising health care and pension costs…

Can’t argue with “properly” set up procedures, I suppose. Nor laws. That’s why they're called laws. You just have to obey them and shut the f*** up, see? And according to Seattle Times,
most New York unions dealing with public sector employees have been getting wage rises for years. That these haven’t kept up with the overall level of inflation in the country isn’t the employer’s fault. Even if they are sitting on a pretty surplus of $1 billion. That’s just more “nitty gritty” stuff that might confuse you if you start thinking about it. And the two-tier salaries? Two is twice as many as one. So it’s gotta be good.

Considering the transport workers haven’t gone on strike for 25 years in a city that is famed for its crack whores, homeless, muggings, tourists, ganstas and that cultural abomination Sex and the City suggests they’re probably just pulling a stunt. I mean, if they could handle all that for the last quarter of a century, why strike now? No. They’re just being peevish, trying to threaten consumers' God-given rights to travel the city in search of bargains 24/7 and deliberately making maids and nannies and bus boys and waiters late for work. And as if that’s not bad enough, the suffering seems to have no bounds:

At the United Nations, diplomats ate cold salads or served themselves from steam tables when most of the kitchen staff didn't turn up for work.

What is this? Freaking Darfur? At least Wall Street had the sense to charter luxury busses so that the important work of buying and selling abstractions could continue in peace. They probably had better catering too.

Witnessing these levels of resilience is almost as poignant as the time that spoilsport Greens member tried to ban drunkenness for politicians in NSW parliament. At taxpayer subsidised alcohol rates of course you’d get pissed, you fool - who you trying to kid? And it's not at all ironic now, nor was it then, to note that the same group of politicians were at that very time coming down hard on Sydney’s own subterranean transport workers, threatening to sack them if they so much as had 0.1% of alcohol in their systems, one fifth of the legal limit at which you may drive a car in NSW.

The Premier at the time had a fairly decisive view on things:

Asked why politicians should be allowed to be drunk while on the job when public sector workers such as train drivers undergo drug and alcohol tests, Mr Carr said MPs can't be compared with those who, among other things, have to operate brakes.

No. Much more dangerous to operate brakes (on vehicles which have the option of automated brakes being applied if impulse response buttons are not pushed every 30 seconds, on tracks which pretty much go in one direction) than to make decisions about billions of dollars, millions of people, hundreds of laws, shitloads of roads and national parks and hospitals and schools and aarrggh – I don’t think I can go on... - let's get back to that strike in New York...)

The strike comes at a time when the labor movement has suffered serious setbacks at every level. Most recently, auto workers are being asked to take unheard-of cuts in pay and benefits and union membership continues to free-fall in the private sector.

I have no satisfying explanation for the many embittered folk who, instead of considering their own losses and disintegrating work rights in recent years (which, surprise surprise, coincide with the demise of unions and changes in legislation), form a nasty, hungry, resentful pack, trying to divest the "lucky ones" of what they still have, reminding me of compounds in South Africa (we call them "gated communities" - at least South Africa didn't mince words there) where an armed black guard would stand ready to shoot anyone who attempted to enter the property and was quite often more racist than his masters. I see it, I recognise it, I don't understand it. It's like a collective mental illness or something.

According to the New York Times

The authority improved its earlier wage proposals, dropped its demand for concessions on health benefits and stopped calling for an increase in the retirement age, to 62 from 55.

But then, just hours before the strike deadline, the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, put forward a surprise demand that stunned the union. Seeking to rein in the authority's soaring pension costs, he asked that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay. The union balked, and then shut down the nation's largest transit system for the first time in a quarter-century. (emphasis mine)

Yet for all the rage and bluster that followed, this war was declared over a pension proposal that would have saved the transit authority less than $20 million over the next three years.

So the guy who's in charge of this billion dollar authority in one of the biggest cities in the world waits until the last minute of negotiations, introduces a completely new agenda item and asks people who already are falling behind every year in relative wages to take a futher 4% pay cut, calling it a "contribution". I just hope that someone works out his salary and conditions and publishes it.

Still, not everyone had a bad day yesterday. Canny marketers, with reptilian accuracy, took ADvantage of the possibilities offered by Google. (OK - terrible pun, but it's my pun, so I'm leaving it in).

And the final word really does have to go to the following anonymous, and quite possibly prophetic, comment overheard in New York:

Suit: I read that they're gonna be replaced by robots soon. A robot's not gonna complain about pension.

Cheers to larimdaME for the great photo

Pigs fly!

I'm a bit stunned and very pleased to report that Warner Chappell Music has apologised to Walter Ritter! (the guy they unreasonably threatened after he wrote a specialised search application that was becoming popular). They've even woken up to the opportunity that was sitting there all along:

"Ritter says Warner Chappell is now talking with him about ways to create lyrics search tools with the blessing of music publishers, but the experience will cause him to think twice before committing his next big idea to code."

Like the Sony fiasco (the link will take you to an article called How Sony became an ugly sister - number 1 search result from Google news using the word "sony"...!!) and the Grateful Dead reversal, let's hope the Warner apology represents another small shift in the entertainment companies' collective understandings of what people will or will not tolerate. Let alone the abundance of talent and good ideas out there just waiting to be discovered.

Another feel-good story this week is Worldchanging's post on India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Libraries (TKDL), which has accumulated 30 million pages of data documenting traditional medicines and practices in "abundant detail".

"The goal isn't to restrict the use of these traditional medicines, but to ensure that they cannot be patented in places like the United States and Europe because of a lack of documented "prior art.""

How cool is that?

Certainly much cooler than the Telcos lobbying for 2 tier system (via Smart Mobs, via Boing Boing, via Clay Shirky, via Boston Globe, what the hell is the etiquette for these things can someone please tell me..) which is essentially a push for yet another future where some people are more equal than others oink oink;

"The Boston Globe reported on Dec 13 that the newly combined AT&T/SBC are lobbying on Capitol Hill to be allowed to create a "two tiered" speed system for their broadband customers. So that they may slow down video and presumably other content from sources outside of their company over their broadband conenctions...

...this kind of feudalism coupled with monopolism destroys the open commons nature of the internet. Most, if not all of the major business successes and innovations on the internet (Google, Amazon, Ebay, etc) have been due to the internet's fundamentally open nature."

Buggars. If they think we're going to accept a future where we serf the net, they've got another thing coming. Like bankruptcy.

Photo by Ange

'Tis the season to be falsie

The Center for Media and Democracy is currently holding its second annual "Falsies Awards" contest to identify the most flagrant propagandists, spin doctors and information polluters of 2005.

Take their survey to vote for the most deserving loser.

(And speaking of weird media, I was listening to the ABC news on TV earlier tonight and heard them report that police had "found molotov cocktail implements including condoms". Seems to me that they've missed the whole point about safe sects...)

Cheezy grins to Dr Joolz for the falsies :-)

Take Christmas. Please.

Y'know I wish that bloody Grinch would steal Christmas.

Sitting at home again tonight nursing my misanthropy, dark furry and familiar little puppy that it is, telly droning in the background, tapping away at the computer. At first I didn't really notice what was on but pretty soon it became clear that it must be the Carols in the Domain time of year again. And, whoopee, this year they're the Woolworths Carols to boot! Kewl. Just like the olden days when Lordit Inbred III indulged the wassailing serfs for one brief Christmas moment, returning a fraction of the fruits of their labours as a token, but I digress…

I remember as a little kid being quite fascinated by the David Jones Christmas family advertisements on television, vaguely ashamed that my family was nothing like them, eyes drawn to the fabulous presents under the perfect tree. The beaming smiles, group hugs and poignant moments with Grandma looked a bit unfamiliar too but hey, what the hell did I know. Maybe other families were like that. But even then, Christmas was still something fairly local.

I remember going to Carols in the Domain a few years after I moved to Sydney thinking it might be good to partake of some of that public peace and goodwill to all men. And if that failed, I knew I would still enjoy the thousands of bats that fly around the Domain's fig trees at sunset - they never fail to please. But instead of participating in a candle-filled night of song and celebration, we became the "audience" for a spectacle being manufactured and beamed to the rest of Australia, complete with the host celebrity following a script, settling the peasants during station commercial breaks and urging us back into life when the cameras came back on. Most of the crowd couldn't see much of the action on the stage given the size of the event so the majority of us watched the whole thing on giant screens beside the stage, seeing the same show as anyone else who was at home watching television, apart from the bit parts we played as the happy crowd whenever we were required to cheer.

Yet as I watched tonight, on the small screen, I began to wonder do we really need Dorothy the Dinosour and the Wiggles to facilitate our annual dose of collective song? And even if their inclusion can be justified by the sheer numbers of children who absolutely love them, what's the excuse for the other minor celebrities? Is Carols just another fetish on their altar of ego? Where they would do anything for the attention?

But no. Surely noone in their right mind would want to sing "Little Drummer Boy" in front of hundreds of thousands of people, trying to remember how many bloody pa-rapa-pum-pums there are before the next bit, just to get admired by an audience? I remember how mortifying it was to sing it at school even without the weird time signatures. No. There must be some other reason. Though I'm yet to discover it.

And the poor crowd has no hope of singing along most of the time anyway. For a start too many of the songs are unfamiliar to the audience, American imports generating images of Father with his politically incorrect pipe, standing by the fire roasting chestnuts, snowflakes falling prettily outside the window. In other cases, where there might be more hope of participating in traditional and well known pieces, they're turned into cabaret arrangements where no-one has a hope of singing along unless they attended the rehearsal and learned the secret handshake. Which may not be such a bad thing given how Australians sing, but still, it's a bit churlish on the part of the organisers.

And can you imagine what poor John Lennon would make of the decision to engage Leo Sayer to sing Merry Xmas (the War is over)? Talk about incongruity! Not that there's anything wrong with Leo Sayer, but it’s a bit like Mork from Ork being invited to host Live Aid (tho' given my feelings about the insufferably pious and irony-deficient Bono, that's perhaps not such a silly idea...) And as if that’s not enough they're now threatening to bring out David Hasselhof next. Good lord!

......

Hahahaha!!! That wasn't disappointing in the least. Wish I’d filmed it or something. His song was God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman. Nice sturdy tune, no-nonsense pace, minor chords keeping it all in check. Except that if you were a Trobriand Islander you’d have wagered all your yams on the certainty that he was singing the story of Exodus. Or perhaps Odysseus’ reunion with Penelope. No, the Hoff did not disappoint at all (and really I had to hold my sides during the third verse when he swayed from side to side with his arm in the air - if someone had put a cigarette lighter in his hand it could've been an AIDS fundraiser or Tsunami appeal).

And much as I clucked and chuckled through many of the minor musical crimes committed during the evening, I really did need to take my hat off to the woman who sang one song in particular (which I cannot name because I just couldn’t bear for her to ever read this) like she was bashing a saucepan with a spoon. I actually turned from the computer to watch the whole thing because it was so startling. But at least the crowd would have been able to keep up with that one, so I suppose some community singing did become possible on the night.

I was surprised to note that there were no public warnings about terrorism or the need for huge numbers of police to protect the crowd. But then again it must have been self evident that no terrorist in their right mind would put themselves through that for the sake of a mere holy war.

While it was fun in parts, I had to sigh with relief at the end when they sang Go, Santa, Go.

And finally they went.

motomo