Archive for May, 2006
Manifesto for a new century
Many things about the modern world are a really big improvement on previous centuries. Antibiotics and immunisation, for example, are just brilliant. The printing press and the internet both get a big tick. The combination of food security, medicine, and good global communication and transport have led to high levels of peace, freedom, and tolerance [...]
Is big brother watching?
TheWaz recently posted an article giving the link to the Wired magazine leaking of the documents involved in the AT&T NSA wiretap case brought by EFF. It boils down to the idea that if your internet traffic goes through any of the big US backbones then it is being reconstructed and monitored by the NSA [...]
In: law, net, observations
Giving the public what it doesn’t want
Politicians sometimes need to feed us medicine which tastes bad. More often than not this medicine is designed to benefit the doctor rather than the patient. The Australian public were forced to swallow a goods and services tax it didn’t agree with, and now it looks like nuclear power is being forced down our collective [...]
Leaving Dogworld
I once spent 12 months helping renovate a building. I would walk down there before sunrise, and not leave until after sunset, usually seeing almost no one except the guy I worked with. It made for a strange kind of sensory deprivation – for example smells seemed magnified and the sunlight was more intense. More [...]
Armed Madhouse – interview
Stream of an interview with Greg Palast from Democracy Now: 256kbps Realplayer stream here. To donate to Democracy Now check the link on their site. In my investigations for Armed Madhouse, I ended up with a story far more fascinating and difficult than I imagined. We didn’t go in to grab the oil. Just the [...]
IP and abundance
Some things have always been abundant, and some things have been abundant from time to time. Think about fresh air and water, or grazing land in the early part of white settlement of North America. Economics, however, can be defined in terms of managing scarcity. Abundance makes economists nervous. There’s a feeling that people might [...]
Ballot stuffing in Ohio
Good proof that the Bush win in 2004 was fixed in Ohio has surfaced here. Should be the biggest story on US news at the moment. I wonder if it is?
In: law, observations, world
Globalisation: Does supply side economics benefit the poor?
Examining the reality of the doctrine of free market globalisation: does supply side economics benefit the poor? The great experiment Supply side economics has been derisively described as trickle down economics, a term which draws fire from its advocates, who say it’s not a matter of giving money to the rich, but of keeping it [...]
The propaganda of genocide
“No matter how idealistic the aim sounds, this new century must become the Century of Humanity, when we as human beings rise above race, creed, colour, religion and national self-interest and put the good of humanity above the good of our own tribe. For the sake of the children and our future. Peux ce que [...]
Africa, AIDS, women and suffering
Gender inequality, AIDS, war, and hunger form a net which ensnares sub-Saharan Africa in terrible suffering. 26 million people are HIV positive in the region, and 3 million new infections occurred in the last year. It is estimated that 2.4 million are dying each year, and it has left 12 million children orphaned. The average [...]
