Look for Me at the Duty Free
The problem I have with the various no-carry-on rules is that the airlines can now steal from their passengers. Swiss Army knife? Now it’s theirs. Litre of vodka? Well, there’s a way around that, if you don’t mind a little alcohol poisoning.

Yes, he had the liquor with him prior to the security screening, so he was, essentially, forewarned that liquids in excess of a set quantity were prohibited. Still, if they’re not going to make provision to return your personal items to you either at the other end of your flight or when you get back, how is it not stealing to confiscate whatever material they happen to find objectionable? I actually am a little concerned about this, since I fully expect to make use of my duty free allowance to bring in some nice whiskey on my trip to the States, but don’t know if (a) purchases made post-security can be carried on during the second, State-side leg of my trip, or if (b) the duty-free shop will be open at my terminus terminal. If (a) isn’t going to be allowed, how can legally purchased material be confiscated?

R.U.R. Update
There’s my robot. My God, it even pours for you. Reminds me of someone (and not the obvious someone, either).

Advances Australia
There are a panoply of Australian inventions that we can point to with great pride, chief among them the cochlear implant, Australian Rules Football, and Tim Tams. And now, a wash-and-wear wool suit.

The Eye of the Beholder
If a bad self-image is a brain glitch, what about when someone really is ugly?

Fantasy and Reality
I heard a lot about the Philip Pullman trilogy, mainly via the internet-as-word-of-mouth, and at the height of the Harry Potter phenomena. They were often touted as a kind of next-Narnia, both for their controversial theological content and for their alternative universe settings. My sister, something of a connoisseur of the fantasy genre, didn’t seem overly impressed with them, and I had no particular interest myself, although, eventually, I did get around to reading them. Well, the first one, anyway. It wasn’t until the middle of this year that I finally read the other two volumes. The first, which is soon to be released in the cinemas, The Golden Compass, put me off with its “daemons” and “steampunk” technology and mannered dialog. But I’m something of a completist, and couldn’t leave it alone. The second volume, The Subtle Knife was better, but not by much, but it’s the third, climactic book, The Amber Spyglass, where all the present controversy should really be focussed. All the hoopla is really pretty much just anticipatory. Pullman is stabbing viciously at the heart of organized religion, European, Christian religion, and how it’s poisoned our lives, particularly as children and how children are raised, and he’s got a point. The concept of “original sin” is pretty pernicious, and I can’t say that child baptism strikes me as anything more than a medieval hold-over from the days of much higher infant mortality and an organisational, cultic perspective on building up the believer base. The books, and, I’m sure, the movies – and it seems pretty certain the other two will have their time and ticket sales – will mute some of this, focussing instead, as much as possible, on the fantasy and adventure elements. I expect the armored polar bear fights to be pretty cool, and the flights of witches, etc., etc., but the books, the movies, are no Last Temptation or Passion, let alone “Piss Christ” or any of the other usual pop culture stuff that gets up the noses of believers. At least no one will go to jail or be beaten or threatened with death, no matter how ugly the rhetoric gets.

Moving
Don’t you love (un)natural phenomena? The sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa (via Kottke.org) are explained as the result of strong winds, maybe, but I think I saw something about this on ”The Outer Limits”, when I was a kid: they’re alive, and if they ever get out of the desert, they’ll take over the world. Where’s a scientist with a steel plate in his head when you need one? Or one with a video camera and some weather station equipment.

No Pets
For those without, cybercat. Not quite the same, is it?

(via Metafilter, of course.)

R.U.R
Across from the office, the ASIMO show is being set up. For the last three days, workers have been slowly assembling the tent where Honda’s robot will dance around for the delight of school children impressed by such things. I’m more impressed by the vacuum cleaner robot, but I don’t know a lot about what ASIMO does these days. Runs, I hear. Bet he can’t build a car. Well, it’s bad enough robots are taking over factory jobs, but they’re infiltrating aged care, too. Actually, that’s pretty impressive. I mean, tomato sauce and toast, not so much, but maybe he’d bring me a beer.

Frankenfood Lurches Closer
NSW will allow farmers to grow genetically modified canola crops, a decision that’s sure to stir up controversy, even if mainly from other states not yet on the GM bandwagon. Segregation of GM and non-GM crops sounds good, but is unlikely to achieve anything. Cross-pollination is a near certainty, which I’m sure will help Monsanto out no end. While I’m sure there’s nothing in the plants that would be harmful to humans, and genetic modification is only a high-tech method of selective breeding, I still have questions and don’t trust politicians to ask the right ones themselves. Using the genetic material of a disease-resistant soy bean to produce a likewise resistant corn makes me wonder what other, unidentified characteristics might be transmitted at the same time? Soy bean to soy bean breeding programs differ in that they’re not transgenic. So what’s being done with the canola? How many generations of regrowth have been studied? What nutritional implications are there?

I’m still waiting for my heirloom tomatoes to start producing, but it’s starting to look like I need a bigger garden.

We’ll All Be Rooned!
Well, interest rates haven’t gone up yet, so I guess we’re still waiting for the new world order to kick in, with labour union thugs fronting up at the local fish ‘n’ chips shop or dry cleaner’s to demand small business owners hire drug addicts and dole bludgers. . . .

Yea! Kevin Rudd is the new PM, and not only did Saturday night see the first Labor government in 11 years, but it saw the sitting PM lose his own seat, the first time since 1929. And Sunday saw Howard’s heir apparent, Peter Costello, resign his portfolio, consigning himself to the back bench and political obscurity for the remainder of his career. (I always thought he was a chicken – no bottle to mount a challenge, and now he can’t even take up leadership for three years in opposition; I guess it’s one thing to respond in question time with jeers, sneers, and smears and another thing to have to come up with the questions.) This puts Malcolm Turnbull in an excellent position to position himself to lead the Liberals back into government in three (or six, or more?) years, although he hasn’t had the party support previously. Downer and Abbott, the other potential contenders, seem too demoralized at the moment, and probably aren’t viable, anyway. Downer’s a pathetic joke of a fop, and Abbott’s role as attack dog just makes his viciousness obvious to everyone.

Labor has given us Australia’s first female deputy PM, Julia Gillard, and promises to tackle all the things Howard ignored throughout his reign. Climate change is on the agenda, for one, and we can expect to see an honest effort at reconciliation, too. Will Rudd say “sorry” right away? Probably not, but it’d be pretty cool if he did.

The Terrorist Tattoo
The gym I go to is out in the western suburbs, in Parramatta, and it’s attended largely by men of Middle Eastern heritage. Like most men in gyms, they’re there to work with the weights. Body-building as body beautiful. There’s one guy, big, muscled, sculpted, who weaves through the place exuding threat, a tough guy. Body-building as weapons deployment. I was, however, taken aback one day to notice he had “al qaeda” tattooed down one arm, in English, no less, using gothic script, even. Obviously, he is not displaying affiliation, membership, just sending a message, a message of intimidation, anger, hate. Arabic characters would say one thing about him, Roman lettering says another.

He’s a serious creep, and an idiot.

So what’s with Martin Amis? Christopher Hitchens splits hairs and counts angels to form a defense, and generally practices the typical denial tactics of the committedly anti-Muslim. (“In which known world” do antiwar protesters become al Qaeda sympathizers? I hear about it quite regularly. Perhaps Mr. Hitchens needs to read more broadly or get out more often.)

We need to be able to talk about and to each other. To take Hitchens’ point about discrimination, we need to be able to distinguish between the good and the bad without being misunderstood. This is where Amis’ remarks and subsequent clarifications have failed and where the defense from Ian McEwan and Hitchens also fails. They attempt the fine distinctions but disingenuously, obscuring Amis’ failure to discriminate and communicate in a manner that progresses the debate instead of allowing it to continue to degenerate into polarization and police-state bedwetting.

I’m not about to ask “al qaeda” boy at the gym out for a coffee to discuss the matter. He’s too clearly on the muscle; I’m too much a soft old fat white man to get away with it, and I’d likely end up with a broken nose for my effort. But in the public debate, I have to be able to say Muslims are killing others in terrorist actions and it has to stop. It’s not every Muslim, and stopping every person of “Middle Eastern appearance” or disallowing women to go veiled isn’t going to help anything. I’m not intimidated by the burqa or hijab any more than I am by sidecurls and yarmulkes or little gold crosses on a necklace. I also don’t want to have to be on the lookout for unattended baggage or to be forced to take my shoes off at the airport or disallowed from carrying toothpaste in my carry-on luggage. I do blame Muslims for this – the ones who want to blow me up, anyway, equally with the hysterical politicians whose do-nothing approach these last six years have left us all so vulnerable and debased the conversation we have to have.

“al Qaeda.” What a moron.

King for a Day
One more day, anyway.

John Howard tries on new glasses.
(Image lifted from ABC News, AAP Paul Miller)

”Alla Akba”
Not only is retiring Liberal Senator Jackie Kelly’s husband a creep, a bigot, and a plain idiot, so is she. "Pretty much everyone who's read [the fake flyer] chuckles." Sorry, you fool, but we’re laughing at you, not with you.

The handbill, purporting to be from a (non-existent) Islamic radical group supporting Labor for the federal election, is full of the kind of divisive, rate-hate inciting rhetoric typical of the most egregiously red-necked Liberal supporters. Calling it a drunken prank isn’t going to excuse it for any but the most recalictrantly stupid of the same group, ignoring as it does the effort required to compose, print and distribute it, let alone the sheer hatefulness of it conception.

Are senior Liberal Party members truly involved? I sincerely hope not, but this kind of political dirty trick should not be excused by anyone, including Jackie Kelly, and has no place in a supposedly modern country.

Interest
I understand that all party advertising is to have stopped by midnight yesterday, although I don’t know if that includes, for example, union ads advocating ALP positions, but I’m looking forward to never having to hear the awful, negative, vitriolic ads – generated from either side – that have been bombarding me with increasing force and frequency, but particularly the Liberal ads, which, when they focus on the Labor leadership, pretty much just recycle the campaign attacks from 2004 – interest rates and “learner” leaders.

Interest rates have increased six times since the last election, when the Coalition ran on the promise that rates would “always be lower than under a Labor government,” a meaningless promise, if only because the independent Federal Reserve sets the rates, let alone that the Labor government was purely hypothetical.

And while all governments can be – and have been, including Howard himself – tarred with the “learner” brush, that doesn’t mean there’s any substance to the accusation. In fact, under the parliamentary system, the opposition establishes a “shadow” government, developing alternative policies, as necessary, albeit without the full public service resources of the government proper, and debating policy and proposing legislation (insofar as it’s possible – Howard’s double majority, in the House and Senate, has precluded the possibility of any but Coalition-initiated acts moving through).

So while the remaining Liberal ads have been about union “thugs” taking over every small business in the country by force (entertaining little fictions) and the Labor ads have focussed on the lack of future-minded policies from the Liberals (other than the [potentially “non-core”] promise that Howard will retire and crown his successor, voters with serious intentions will already have been focussed on whatever substantive material has been available. Most of that has come from the ALP.

The Liberals have relied on the message, “hey, it’s us; we’re just going to go on like this forever.” This ignores so many important longer-term areas of concern, not least among them climate change, which the Coalition has ignored for the last 11 years, and the eventual need for the economy to end its reliance on the resources boom. Making industrial relations unfair to workers doesn’t position the economy into flexibility, but entrenches businesses while allowing employee exploitation. Labor has offered more in both areas and with an awareness that these are not matters for merely the next three years, but the next thirty.

Howard’s reign has been all about power, a lesson he learned from childhood: the top is only the top if you can keep everyone else beneath you. This is what he has done with his colleagues, first among them his perpetual heir-in-waiting, Peter Costello, and with the Australian public, who have allowed their own interests to dominate their lives and re-elected him to see to the preservation of a increasingly tenuous status quo. I think enough of us have finally seen through that self-interested veil to Howard’s real motivations and will, like me, vote Labor on Saturday.

Surge Protection
So it seems the troop escalation is starting to have an effect, in Baghdad, at least, although many questions remain, and will do so, for some time to come. What is the true source of the reduction in violence? Is this because the number of troops increased, or is it the result of Iran backing off, perhaps hoping to take some of the international heat off so they can keep working on their uranium enrichment program (which seems to be headed in a new direction as well, with Iran potentially outsourcing the process)? Are the Iraqi troops managing a front line role more now? What about the rest of the country? When the British pulled out of Basra, didn’t the violence there go down, too, in which case, how can troop increases have the same result as decreases? And to say that the number of bombings or the number of other attacks or the number of persons killed is at the lowest level since 2005, 2006, etc., doesn’t itself seem to mean very much if the attacks, bombs, murders continue, does it? I want to believe progress is being made, but it’s hard to know for sure what’s happening, or how long it will last.

More Like a Rodeo Clown
So-called “maverick” Senator, Barnaby Joyce, says he won’t try to stop a Rudd government from ending WorkChoices. But Joyce says a lot of stuff and is rarely to be counted on for follow-through. His maverick status comes only at the price of having a big mouth, so there’s no reason to trust him on this one.

This Is Why I’m Voting Labor
Howard’s just locked in my vote for the opposition, with his assertion that a Coalition win would ensure WorkChoices would be enshrined forever in Australian law, which I knew already, of course. This retrograde law, designed mainly with the intention of destroying unions and all other forms of collective relief, as well as to reduce protections from unfair dismissal, has already damaged employer-employee relations, and must be rescinded as soon as possible. This can only happen with a Labor win. Go Rudd!

Call It “The Clinton Factor”
After Bill played sax on MTV, the need for [leadership] candidates to appear on pop talk shows was established, and this requirement has spread to Australia, where opposition leader and current Prime Ministerial favorite, Kevin Rudd did his duty on Rove Live last night. Now, Rove is entertaining, more or less, but his show’s interviews are often the weakest part, consisting largely of product-placement, a difficult trick for someone not having a CD or concert tour to promote. Rudd came off o.k., a bit stiff, and there was a moment of hysterical panic over the ear wax incident (you don’t want to know). He managed a couple of fair one-liners, didn’t get out anything substantive, and basically weathered the experience. The biggest selling point the segment accomplished was that John Howard declined to accept Rove’s invitation (fair enough, he’s a sitting PM, and Rove mocks him mercilessly). And so we go into the final week, with Labor polling to take 2 more seats than the 16 they need to swing to form a government, including the PM’s and that of potential Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull. For all the lack of storm or substance in this campaign, it’s turning out to be nearly interesting.

Dead Pool: Literary Edition
1. Norman Mailer
2. Ira Levin
3. ? (Maybe Philip Roth should be careful crossing the street? Or Judith Krantz?

Visionary
Similar services are available in the States, but after my last pair of glasses cost something like AU$400, with very little rebate from my private cover, when I heard about Glasses Online, I had to try it out. Admittedly, picking a frame style isn't quite the same as trying on frame after frame in a shop, and, upon arrival, I was surprised at the narrow depth, but the prescription's right, the look's good (enough; it's not like I'm particularly vain), and the price was easily half what I'd pay in an optometrist. I'll submit the invoice to my private cover provider and see what comes back (because I also bought - in a shop - some new sunnies, I don't expect anything, or much, anyway). Overall, this is a highly satisfactory consumer experience.