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.

Crimeyness
According to the latest information from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, I’m living in one of the most across-the-board safe neighborhoods in the city. It’s a little peculiar, however, that the local government area in the study ends at the western border of my suburb, when Camperdown is not part of the same council district as most of the rest of those in the study, but instead in Marrickville Council. So I’m left to wonder what the rest of my true LGA would look like, and therefore what suburbs are worth considering for a home purchase (not that that’s the only consideration, or even the primary, given the recent spate of interest rate rises and those likely to come over the next few months, particularly once – if – Labor takes the federal election). It should be noted that many of the southern suburbs are less than felicitous, because that’s where the airport is. I already feel like I’m back in Queens, living in the LaGuardia flight path.

Advances in Science
Via Arts & Letters Daily, an analysis of paranormal phenomena that disproves the existence of ghosts, vampires, and zombies. Except that the two physicists have failed to do so, due to having incompletely understood the governing “rules.” Ghosts, for example, can walk up stairs because they’re not walking. They’re floating. They appear to walk because the ghost, as a being trapped in the physical plane by their inability to accept their transition to the spiritual realm, emulate their own past behaviors. Vampires would not overrun the earth, or haven’t already, because the assumption here, that being bitten by a vampire creates a vampire, subtracting a human, is incorrect. Vampires are created when humans consume the blood of a vampire and then die, whether from being “drained” by the vampire or otherwise. Not all victims so partake, so the vampire population is not exponentially increased, neither is the human population exponentially decreased. Zombies of the “28 Days Later” or “Night/Dawn/Day of the [Living] Dead” variety are not the same as traditional zombies, per the discussion of the case in Haiti. Modern movie zombies are more akin to vampires, and, as per that discussion, don’t exist, because their bite, or body fluid transmission, invariably infects the victim, and would therefore cause an exponential population dominance transfer, as depicted in the example movies. However, traditional zombies may yet be considered as possible, since these are brain-damaged persons, whether by the malicious infliction of drugs or by disease, who fall into the control of unscrupulous persons, who treat them as slaves or as agents of terror.

I mean, really, if you watch the movies, the rules aren’t that hard to figure out, and the traditional explanations are pretty clear after all this time. Scientists, go figure.

Viral
Yeah, I set up a Facebook page, and had a bit of fun with it, but it’s pretty boring, now, so I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on it, building “networks” – i.e., joining groups – or adding applications – i.e., on-line toys and games.

It was probably in the cards before Microsoft’s buy-in, but Facebook is expanding its advertising capabilities. You’ve heard of “viral” marketing, the kind of advertising that spreads by word of mouth without necessarily acknowledging that an ad. The Carlton beer “big” ad was one, and even that Rube Goldberg car ad, which I think was Honda’s. More applicable to Facebook’s move, however, is the still largely underground practice of having people attend trendy nightspots and events who then take every opportunity to chat up strangers with how much they like product x. Facebook, similarly, will “allow” users to identify as fans of a product. Advertisers will pay to create groups, and users will join them. Advertisers can pay more and have actual advertising content appear on users’ pages.

This is all very good for Facebook, whose revenues – and profits – are sure to increase, perhaps even dramatically. There are plenty of people out there who really are fans of particular products, and they’re pretty certain to sign on to display their preferences on Facebook. It increases their own profile, after all, and these social networking sites are all about the friends list. But users won’t benefit, as the program’s structured presently, in any monetary sense, that is, they won’t get paid for advertising products on “their” pages. Fair enough, I suppose. The pages really belong to Facebook, not the users. But Google’s Adsense program, where Google puts ads on your blog or website, regardless of whether you’re paying for the site or not, pays for “hits” and pays more if those hits translate into sales. This seems a bit more fair to me, but then I’m not likely to sign up as a fan (or tool) or anyone’s anytime soon.

Are the Favorites Sneezy & Wheezy?
Poor critters, hardly time enough to recover from the flu, and it's The Race that Stops a Nation, this year "marred" by scratches among the top contenders.

Cinema
Well, movies, anyway. . . . M. and I went to Death at a Funeral on Saturday. It’s a pretty typical British farce, with a simple, limited set of jokes stretched nearly to their limit, a few big but obvious gags, all performed by a serviceable cast, some of whom are vaguely familiar, but probably only better known to a U.K. audience (which is not a criticism, since it helps, as far as I’m concerned, when movies are not overly beset by Stars). Fun, but, really, we should have gone to see Ratatouille. (Or Day Watch, but I haven’t seen Night Watch yet.)

Changes
The election campaign is going strong, with announcements seemingly every day from every side. The Liberals promise one thing, Labor promises the same thing, the Democrats or Greens promise something else. Labor promises something, the Liberals promise the same thing, and the Democrats or Greens promise something entirely different. Mostly what it amounts to is promises of billions and billions of dollars spent on things that the present government, over the last 11 years, hadn’t been spending on, but with the Reserve Bank tipped to raise interest rates yet again tomorrow, you’ve got to wonder about the economic credentials of any of these people. The Liberals have managed the government mainly by not spending up big, except at elections or on advertising for policies the public generally despise, so hearing that Labor is going to spend similarly would seem to be one of the big influencers in the Reserve Bank’s decision-making process.

Meanwhile, at least there’s some entertainment to be had. Over the weekend, we had Peter Garrett making an ill-advised joke to one reporter in front of another, the latter of whom, a notorious shock-jock (whose wife is a Liberal Party staffer), duly reported the remark as a serious statement regarding all Labor’s policy announcements. Way to shoot your boss in the foot, Pete.

Previously, however, we had the always entertaining Tony Abbott turning up late for his own debate, by half an hour, without so much as a phone call to warn the National Press Club, let alone his Labor opponent. When called on his bad behavior, Tone had the class to swear at his interlocutor. Lovely guy. And all this on the heals of questioning the motivations of an asbestiosis sufferer regarding his campaign to get necessary drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Classy.

Three weeks to go.