infinite community

2004-01-24T01:23:00.000+11:00

off to France in a couple of hours... should have a laptop sorted early next month. I'll endevour to publish my diary of the trip then.

Back the week after next!

2004-01-15T03:28:00.000+11:00

The Soft 'D'

Phonetically, very close to an 'L' but not as pointy sounding.

a) The tongue does not caressing the top of your mouth and back of your teeth.
b) Rather let it come to a crashing halt at the back of your bottom teeth.
c) The result should be a soft, 'blaeh' sound - apparently like a sea otter.

Danish is apparently alongside Dutch as the 'worst sounding' language in the world thanks to the soft 'd' and harsh 'r.'

Update: I was told by a Dane in my college that it's between 'th' and 'l' in English...

2004-01-05T07:39:00.000+11:00

Happy Belated New Year

Well the hiatus adds a hint of irony to my new title, but .. hey.
London was everything I expected - a seething juxtaposition of old and new architecture, cultures, lifestyles. New office towers across the road from the Tower of London; the Tate Modern's colonization of industrial space; poor neighbourhoods just a block away from porsche neighbourhoods.

I stayed in Battersea. It reminded me of the inner city aspirational suburbs of Sydney. You'd pass a sports betting office and a 'cheque cashing office' on the way to the station. Grubby matresses would slouch next to beat up 10 year old computers on footpaths. You'd cross the road to avoid a street fight.

It's an expensive town if you're not careful. Transport is particularly steep. My first impressions of Copenhagen are that it's as bad if not worse. Yet, for some reason, mobile phone costs here are less than half that of Australia...

Update (as promised): Thus far, the Danes I've encountered have been modest and pragmatic. They have a saying here. 'If it's understated, it's good.'

Costs have been prohibitive, particularly as far as food goes. The language is going to take some time to master. The pronunciation and rhythm are quite unique, however the grammar is more simple than German (my second language).

The one thing I can say for the students here is that they know how to party. The bar in my college closes at 4am ...

I'm still recovering from the weekend...

2003-12-28T18:27:00.000+11:00

Flying to London in a couple of hours.

... intermittent blogging over the coming couple of weeks.

2003-12-28T02:18:00.000+11:00

Xmas in the Inner West

Someone stole the wreath from our door in the wee hours of Boxing Day. What's next? Uprooting flowers from the front garden?

2003-12-25T23:46:00.000+11:00

Tuesday is a winner.
C Monks announces the best of 2003

2003-12-25T23:06:00.000+11:00

Merry Thursday Everybody

and I'm on the verge of being kicked off my very first blog server! Apparently I've offended the administration by pulling him up on wild assertions.

2003-12-24T22:59:00.000+11:00

"Parwdon me sir, but I'm wooking for a wabbit"

It's good to know that Google caters for all languages and cultural nuances

2003-12-24T00:50:00.000+11:00

It was a four day business trip. He wanted to write me a cheque as a deposit and he didn't have an email address.

Cute.

2003-12-24T00:47:00.000+11:00

... only left to write

***rant warning***
I've been reading Naomi Klein's Fences and Windows lately. She states in the preface that No Logo was a thesis driven project and this is basically just a motley collection of writings 'from the front lines of the globalisation debates.' There's only one piece which captured my attention - one which made a serious attempt to outline solutions to the current state of affairs.
I'll start by outlining her take on these globalisation protests. Basically there are two sides. There are the evil institutions like the World Bank and IMF. They, along with Corporate [America - mostly] are screwing the world through painful extraction of profits from the most unethical of methods. Up against these are the motley collection of good hearted and pure spirited protestors who, despite their differing aims are part of a global revolution to undermine the all consuming corporeality of Capitalist expansion.

These arguments have been waged inversely on the other side of the political divide - attempts to skew the moral terrain of the arguments with accusations of ideological shortcomings with the poor and needy batted around like political footballs.

Both these books have a utopian vision of the future where the world's problems will be solved via a networking of people through high technology. For Drissen, this means engaging in full bio-technical solutions - the end of nature as we know it. For Klein, we see glimmers of many Gemeinschafts as a decentralised, high tech network - a mutated natural society.

Just as with the 'players', the margins are also subsumed into the binaries in these solutions. A friend of mine was in Genoa in 2001 and, despite his noble aims of Peacefully drawing plight to the vast inequalities and ethical dilemmas of free market virulence, was beaten and tear gassed after the protest sites were highjacked by anarchist groups dressed in black suits, army boots and balaclavas. Acknowledging the vast differences in objectives of the groups at these protests would surely strengthen the case for the left. Just as the voice conservative right is highjacked by yobbos, thugs and nazis; the left too is often a contradictory collection of dreamers, hippies and anarchists. Surely separating the people you want to be there from the people who are is common sense?

Klein's contributions to the debate on globalisation can't be ignored, but her specious solutions and false dichotomies most certainly can be.

2003-12-20T19:37:00.000+11:00

Taylorism vs. Trademarks

McLanguage Meets the Dictionary. by Dennis Baron
"Shredded wheat, thermos, and zipper all began as trademarked terms that morphed into everyday words as well. Manufacturers want the names of their products on everybody's lips, but they don't want those names to become everybody's property..."

(via aldaily)

2003-12-20T19:05:00.000+11:00

"Please, please, please let Bush get caught with a dead girl or live boy before November 2004"
-Smack the Weasal (via. venus im pelz)

That would be one definite route to the unelectable

2003-12-20T18:55:00.000+11:00

Here's a classy newbie from Toothpaste for Dinner

The best sardonic-cum-surreal comics this side of the North Pole...

2003-12-20T18:49:00.000+11:00

Get with the program

Ok so the number of people STILL looking for Paris Hilton's porn movie is a little worrying. I mean, like, that was soooo 3 weeks ago!

2003-12-19T12:13:00.000+11:00

For the remainder of Friday

High fire danger. Hot day.

Sydney: Chance late shower or thunderstorm. 35

Get me out of here!

2003-12-19T00:43:00.000+11:00

I got a digital camera yesterday.
Here's a sample of the wares:

King Street
Central
Eyebal
Beach
cocktails anyone?

2003-12-17T14:23:00.000+11:00

Maybe I could try that telemarketing scam over there

Seems like prison has an upside in Denmark (via Houshusband)

2003-12-17T11:58:00.000+11:00

fresh off the email

2003-12-16T00:42:00.000+11:00

At last Saddam can be added to America's list of great evil guys known for their beards:

Update: Robotjohnny has a tres amusing slant on the capture.

Props to Niall too

2003-12-16T00:05:00.000+11:00

Is he completely Unelectable ? Or just plain unelectable I'd probably go with unelectable.

vive la Googlebomb revolution

2003-12-14T21:56:00.000+11:00

I've been trying to tie up a straw dog over at misbehaving.net - a wonderful collective of tech-related women (including the gorgeous Jill Walker)

His fluffy misogynistic rhetoric is often quaint and amusing; however, his complete inability to grapple constructively with my points presents a rather gloomy outlook for feminism.

One of the more recent comments has been from the initial post-er - Caternia. She calls for everyone to 'ignore Julius.' This begs the question, why? Will he go away? (why not ban his i.p.? He contends that he's merely presenting contrarian perspectives, but there's more at stake here. This is a vision of the future via a vision of the past.

2003-12-13T20:31:00.000+11:00

The language barrier with customers generally doesn't pose a problem. (Anyone who ventures from continental Europe usually has enough English to get by fine, it's another story with the northern Asians though) So, perhaps, it's a little ironic that a pommy couple misheard 'nice tats' for 'nice tits.' I think he was pretty close adding a physical element to my rock splitting headache/hangover.

2003-12-12T10:59:00.000+11:00

yesterday it was too damn hot and humid to do substantial, now it's just too damn wet.

I don't think I could live in the tropics.

2003-12-12T01:07:00.000+11:00

Word of the day: fauxmosexual

2003-12-12T01:00:00.000+11:00

Top 20 definitions of blogging

2003-12-11T12:47:00.000+11:00

Finally added an about section to the sidebar. Check it out here.

2003-12-10T23:20:00.000+11:00

More blog surfin' Sencer.de A bilingual blog.

Mehr Blog surfen Sencer.de Eine zweisprachige Blog

2003-12-10T22:55:00.000+11:00

Blog Duels

Don't Use lifts vs. I am the Stallion

Winner: Mark

2003-12-10T19:40:00.000+11:00

Cosma's blog. Another witty Post-Grad (or Post-Doc as the case may be)

2003-12-10T12:11:00.000+11:00

Response to Not Loving #2

I was going to address Natalie's comments below separately, but I feel sufficiently strong about this issue to dedicate a post to it.

Let me start by directing your attention to an rather noxious article by Steven Berlin Johnson, who as you may guess, is one of my favourite bloggers. It was been published the ardently Left wing The Nation last year, but it reflects a style of thinking about matters which pops up constantly. What I refer to is reductionist or essentialist ways of thinking.

I'll pause right there to refer back to the original subject. I've no doubt that Jen or anyone else for that matter pays little conscious thought to these matters when they write "Men/Women are..." simply because it's a shorthand way of simplifying the problems at hand - and I've no doubt that they don't actually believe that every man or woman they meet has the particular fixed attributes that they're talking about. Indeed this very caper of blogging seems to be conducive to such shorthand, anonymous references. So perhaps this whole rant is a waste of time; which, given Natalie's comments may well be in this case.

However, my innocent little hyperlink :) was also my own little heuristic way of defining a broader stance on the issue. If, as Steven Johnson suggests, "[women are] more adept at integrating emotional, intuitive understanding with logical decision-making" then what else can we surmise about their subjectivity, or their abilities just from their biology/morphology? Perhaps what we "know" about women can go from hemispheric lateralisation to other matter based on empirical research. These are particularly dangerous grounds for anyone with an interest/investment in post-modernism. Surely the ending of these grand narratives, as Lyotard proclaimed, undermines these 'common sense' appraisals.

What's at stake in these matters is how we understand stand sexual difference - as immutably tied to morphology/biology, or as a historically constructed system around this biology. Taking the former path closes options for your identity and subverts the margins into a dichotomy.

I guess I'm passionate about this issue because bringing about change in the world will require an understanding of the historical basis of the systems which comprise it, rather than defaulting difference to an almost immutable essence.

Updated 11 Dec

2003-12-09T09:49:00.000+11:00

3 months on...

Some consultants at my work deal with an international exchange program which sends Aussie kiddies to the UK, USA and Canada to work and play for a year on cheap airfares and vice versa. The applications for next year closed about 3 months ago, and the kiddies are being issued their tickets at the moment.

One poor guy, a recent immigrant from Iraq has applied to take part in the program and wants to go to Los Angeles. The US Government is still processing his visa - doing background checks etc. How fucked must that be to have Saddam hanging over your head - even when you've escaped his broken regime?!?! Freedom is a huge bonus most of us take for granted I reckon.

2003-12-07T23:49:00.000+11:00

steven berlin johnson mixes actuarial pragmatism with transport safety demonstrations. Very funny. In a Seinfeld kind of way.

2003-12-06T23:50:00.000+11:00

Friday Six

(belated thanks to the ever unreliable blogger)
Loving:
1. that I am appreciating more and more how much of a good time I had down in Melbourne with friends I hadn't seen in at least 10 months. It was never, 'why didn't you call?' but always, 'I'm glad you're here.'
2. the profound ambivalence of leaving the country in around 3 weeks. Stay tuned for a fresh blog in the new year pending IT arrangements at my final destination. I just want to get over there really.
3. Stella Artois.

Not loving:
1. the seeming incompetence of the IT dept at Uni. None of my logins work, but thankfully results won't be issued for another 2 weeks.
2. slurrs against 'men.' NOT the best way to advertise your availability...
3. the cloud of mortal melancholy which has enveloped me since learning of Gareth's predicament. I can't communicate how tragic the situation is, nor how helpless I feel.

2003-12-05T11:16:00.000+11:00

nothing of consequence has happened today.
Here's your bone for the day

2003-12-04T22:57:00.000+11:00

Check out Tex's latest post on post-Iraq situation

I think he misses the point about "The Left" wishing Saddam was still in power. This sort of shifting of moral terrain seems typical of conservative perspectives of complex political issues. I saw the issue as being that it was Unilateral and completely flouted the UN.

2003-12-04T11:49:00.000+11:00

... for the feint hearted

This is more of an epilogue to Fleeced on a Spring Day post below. I finally had my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. Quite an experience. I won't go into any graphic detail and use words like sinew, drill, suction, blood and anesthetic in the same sentence.
But, something amusing did happen that day. I went out to make my follow up appointment, then ... thwack. I'm in a dark place pondering stuff. Can't remember exactly what I was pondering, nor where I was or how I got there. Then things come together and I see the surgeon leaning over me. I'm on the ground slightly dribbling on my jeans and my head kinda aches.

"get up SLOWLY" he assertively instructs as I go to leap back up as if nothing is wrong.

By this stage I realised what had happened. lose a litre of blood or so, and you need to move pretty carefully and keep your fliuids up. That's my advice for the day.

Finally, a big cherio to everyone searching for Porn from Denmark!

2003-12-02T22:08:00.000+11:00

I was going to post about Melbourne.
I had an excellent time down there.

I just found out one of my closest friends was diagnosed with Leukemia while I was partying over the weekend.

Update: He's been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia which is the hardest to treat.

2003-11-25T00:46:00.000+11:00

disclaimer

Liability for anything written today is extremely limited given my intake of codeine earlier.

2003-11-25T00:37:00.000+11:00

am:

What happened to Bureaucracy?

I also renewed my license today. I was dreading it. That sanctimonious machine that spews tickets on what feels like old fax paper makes me nervous. One of the more memorable phrases from my social theory course earlier this year was, "[bureacracies have] the engine of a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce." But, I grabbed my one form straight away, waited only 10 mins to be served (they averaged a customer a minute) and then another 5 for my license to be made. Bravo RTA.

pm:

Fleeced On A Cold Spring Day

I was supposed to get a wisdom tooth extracted today, but all I got was a lesson in guerilla (gorilla?) marketing. Packed waiting room, surgeon 90 mins behind. So, naturally, I was wondering why the receptionist was so adamant that I see the oral surgeon when there was a gaff with my other mouth-related professionals with who was supposed to get a whole mouth X-ray (OPG). Clearly the idea of a 'blind' operation doesn't appeal to me; nor does another X-ray appeal to my health fund (and my spidey-radio-cancer-sense for that matter). What I got was about 8-10 mins of instructions that the receptionist had initially given my over the phone with two sheets of paper which indicated the same.

"Right," I thought.
"It's good for him to go through it with me again. He even peered into my mouth to see that ... yes I actually do have teeth. .... Ok."

So I head out to the front desk some 90 mins after my initial appointment confused as to why the hold up. Surely it would have made sense to just say - straight off the bat, "it was a one off today - he had to go to hospital this morning to operate and was caught in traffic (wank wank) etc. etc. I'm very sorry, but can we reschedule for you?"

Instead I was slapped with a *reduced* consultation fee for the scant engagement: $80

I knew I should have asked where he bought his watch.

2003-11-24T01:24:00.000+11:00

My last weekend here at the 'beehive' has been a true watershed. Final TV with the utilitarian flatmate was also the strangely compelling Jacko home movies - perhaps an marketing rebuff to the charges. Sometimes you forget he was the King of Pop and not just the King of Creepy! After that, it was on to the unbelievably banal Denzel Washington froth something about Remembering the Titans or some crap. Close up after close up of precious moments of either unalloyed masculinity or fuzzy 'colourblindness' overlayed with a sugary symphonic score. Pass the retch-bucket!

"oh come on Dec, you know you love it"

"I do. but I like it surreptitiously presented next to me - rather than smashed across my face with muscle-truck force. Go watch Donnie Darko again T."

Friday night was exceptional. All my favourite people turned up - or sent me an email with same lame/non-existent excuse why they didn't. (living 23 hours flight away is lame btw Em.) Just kidding. Friday's are always tough - and I didn't give much notice. I'm not sure whether I'm a man because I didn't set a limit for the night, or whether everyone just plain shouldn't when it's your birthday - but I woke up rather fragile ... on a couch at friend's in Burwood. It took a while to piece together how I got there. I have a bad feeling I sent a whole lot of text messages too. I think automatic drunk locks would be a marketable accessories to mobile phones. Really.

On a not-entirely-unrelated tangent, I seem to be tag teaming MsJJ, as I'm heading south of the border ... down ~~Mexico~~ Melbournico way on Thursday. I have about 1001 things to do before I go, so blogging will be intermittent until I get settle into my fresh new address when I back.

2003-11-23T00:28:00.000+11:00

Has anyone ever asked Ari Fleischer if he's being sarcastic?

Check out Americans for War.

2003-11-22T23:56:00.000+11:00

Post Mortem

20-17.

I think we were lucky to get as close we did. England won the game (I feel like New Zealand lost the game last weekend - they couldn't hold it together). England were clinical, tight, quick round the back and too powerful down the front. In extra time, we never threatened their line really. You could sense Wilkinson's boot snatching victory.

Now I've got to deal with the touting pommies tomorrow.

2003-11-21T17:29:00.000+11:00

Chris Monks has done another critique of blog photos.
What can I say? The blogosphere wouldn't be the same without him.

Music of the Day: Yoshinori Sunahara - Love beat. Exquisite minimalist downbeat electro.

2003-11-21T16:41:00.000+11:00

count'em

pairs of prescription glasses now owned: 2
... which are funky minimalism stylin': 1
hours of sleep before exam: 6
... beers to be consumed tonight: >6
ANOVA performed today: 2
... intended future ANOVA to be performed: 0
times encountered the acronym RWC: 23
... years until acronym encountered again: 4
maximum weeks until my Danish visa approved: 12
... weeks until I land in Denmark: 6

2003-11-21T14:09:00.000+11:00

Kick ass

Item # 1641798199
This made me laugh out loud... for quite a while

2003-11-21T13:51:00.000+11:00

Unfortunately, Correlation doesn't = Causation ... but

In 1991 Australia lost their No.8 and best forward Tim Gavin to injury
on the eve of the World Cup

In 2003 Australia lost their No.8 and best forward Toutai Kefu to injury
on the eve of the World Cup

In 1991 Australia was coached by a former Randwick forward who never
played for Australia

In 2003 Australia was coached by a former Randwick forward who never
played for Australia

In 1991 Australia won a crucial match against Ireland by 1 point

In 2003 Australia won a crucial match against Ireland by 1 point

In 1991 Australia upset the All Blacks in the semi-final

In 2003 Australia upset the All Blacks in the semi-final

In 1991 England won their semi-final without scoring a try

In 2003 England won their semi-final without scoring a try

In 1991 Australia was captained by a halfback

In 2003 Australia was captained by a halfback

In 1991 the Australian starting XV had 9 players playing for or
originating from NSW

In 2003 the Australian starting XV had 9 players playing for or
originating from NSW

In 1991 Australia defeated England in the final

In 2003 ???????????????????????????????

(via the Nicstar)

2003-11-20T19:19:00.000+11:00

18 ways to hate your neighbour. (not via diagramatic pedants at Ugga Bugga, but chun)

2003-11-20T00:02:00.000+11:00

not a tan in sight: blogger get together ... blogged

Music of the Day: UNKLE eye for an eye mixes

2003-11-19T21:43:00.000+11:00

Australian Idle

What... worse procrastination 36 hours out from the hardest exam of my life thus far.
I pray for rain ... (1) in the Opera House so the umpires will call it a draw. (2) in my exam room so we all automatically get passed. However I fear Namibia had shorter odds to be playing this Saturday. And I don't think dinner has much to do with it either

2003-11-19T12:16:00.000+11:00

Balcony

Idle pleasures (via boynton)

2003-11-19T00:55:00.000+11:00

Google: Paris Hilton Sex Porn Movie

Yeah find it here .... well, this idea for letting the hits roll in anyway

2003-11-18T23:58:00.000+11:00

Nausea anyone? Heart required

Will B's Baboon has a Nature to Hate section

2003-11-18T22:37:00.000+11:00

Word and Quote of the Day

banausic (buh-NAW-sik, -zik) adjective

Mechanical, utilitarian or routine, as opposed to inspiring or imaginative.

[From Greek banausikos, from banausos (mechanic).]

"It should be clear to all that Islam - the faith of one-fifth of humanity - is consistent with democratic rule."

U.S. President George W. Bush

2003-11-17T23:19:00.000+11:00

Up in Smoke

What it's costing: $500K per day - The roll-call of tobacco-related diseases: cancer, Crohn's disease, heart disease, heart failure, lung disease, pneumonia, SIDS, spontaneous abortion and stroke - to name a few - are just one factor in a health care burden of half a million dollars per day in NSW alone.
No wonder: First ban imposed on a club smoking - A bowling club where a staff member was sacked for wearing a gas mask to protect himself from second-hand smoke has become the first club ordered to go smoke-free by the NSW Government (via smh)

Pragmatism wins in the end ... ?

2003-11-17T23:18:00.000+11:00

Songs for ourselves

New research suggests that we like music that sounds just like us. (via aldaily.com)

To grasp the originality of this idea [that language and music may equally be able to tell us where we're from] , it's necessary to realize two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasized that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music, music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale -- that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano.

There's so much at stake in how these sorts of research are construed. Power appear to flow from you when you have the "truth" on your side. Once you know you're right, what comes next?

This is poignant with the treatment of the term "culture." Psychologists have a poor track record in this domain - which I firmly believe to be that of the Anthropologist and Sociologist. Culture is largely treated as monolithic and reactionary in the Psych literature I've come across. Roy Baumeister's The Two Sides of Unrequited Love, for example, uses "culture" as a reference point for his prescriptive formulae on human relationships. Naturally this squashes your subjectivity into a grey box marked "culture" - which is presumably dictated by some banal demographic criteria.

I always seem to get turned off a fascinating topic of research such as this by the search for some evolutionary truth about our being. This one seems walks a fine line, but I think it's treatment of "that ugly c" word might just pass muster ..

2003-11-17T00:32:00.000+11:00

Spiffy

Finally got around to changing the template :)
Changed comments to haloscan - which should be a little more reliable ...
Update: cleaned up linkage to your left.

2003-11-16T22:10:00.000+11:00

Chun the Unavoidable - Witty commentary from a postgrad ... of [insert field]

2003-11-16T22:09:00.000+11:00

Up in Smoke

What it's costing: $500K per day - The roll-call of tobacco-related diseases: cancer, Crohn's disease, heart disease, heart failure, lung disease, pneumonia, SIDS, spontaneous abortion and stroke – to name a few - are just one factor in a health care burden of half a million dollars per day in NSW alone.
No wonder: First ban imposed on a club smoking - A bowling club where a staff member was sacked for wearing a gas mask to protect himself from second-hand smoke has become the first club ordered to go smoke-free by the NSW Government (via smh)

Pragmatism wins in the end ... ?

2003-11-16T19:25:00.000+11:00

Not quite the seductress

Fight Club!

What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-11-15T18:48:00.000+11:00

Imagine that ...

Instant ecstasy (via Daily Dose)

2003-11-15T16:40:00.000+11:00

Good to know

You are the seductress pin-up! You are self-
explanatory. You slut!

What Type Of Retro Gal Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-11-15T01:18:00.000+11:00

A little prescriptive moralism anyone?

Read the top right hand corner of my blog. It says SOCIOLOGIST right? Guess what happens when I come across a SCIENTIST with the babushka to deal with the ethics of developmental economics, badly? Well, click here to find out.

2003-11-14T22:59:00.000+11:00

Qrio can walk uphill, sing, dance, wave hello, wiggle its fingers and kick a ball with surprising grace. Two digital cameras, one behind each eye, help Qrio map a room for future reference and recognize up to 10 different faces. It can also converse in Japanese. Can you?

I guess it was only a matter of time (TIME Coolest Inventions 2003)

2003-11-14T08:20:00.000+11:00

happy birthday to me :)
woooohooo!!

now I can legally drink in the USA ... a right I will hopefully be exercising in the near future

Update: Wow! Totally excellent birthday. Not only did I get to see most of my favourite people, but I had lots of great food and met a wonderful chicky ... I'll keep you posted. Unfortunately my evening was cut short by my mobile phone battery dying. FcUking frustrating considering I'd still be out right now if it wasn't. Anyway. still, lots of great presents of much utility... :)

2003-11-14T08:14:00.000+11:00

Pre Christmas Virgin Blue Sale on now
c")
Cheap domestic flights ahoy

2003-11-13T18:19:00.000+11:00

The best or the worst way to go? Man eats 121 bags of Coke

2003-11-12T23:01:00.000+11:00

top 50 guy movies of all time

Good for a larf

2003-11-12T22:23:00.000+11:00

Music of the Day: got hold of Blue States - Nothing Changes Under the Sun. They record under Thievery Corporation's label Eighteeth Street Lounge - and it's beautiful. Just beautiful.

2003-11-12T22:04:00.000+11:00

An Ethical Phantasy

"These self-appointed guardians of the public weal have little understanding of (and often harbor a deep distaste for) business, capitalism, market economies, technology, global trade, and the vital role of profits in generating innovation and progress."

"The ideological environmental movement is a powerful $4 billion-a-year US industry, an $8 billion-a-year international gorilla. Many of its members are intensely eco-centric, and place much higher value on wildlife and ecological values than on human progress or even human life."

Some guy (or possibly a group of monkeys writing under pseudonym) called Paul Drissen has written a book called Eco-Imperialism. It summons 3 pages from Google. I would suggest that the ridiculous contradictions like that above (limited understanding of markets, yet able to generate an industry worth some $8bn?) represents the quality of arguments presented. It's full of little swipes at the ethics of resistance employed by environmental NGOs (they're all the same aren't they?) eg:

"The militants’ repetoire of “persuasive” methods now includes fire-bombings, beatings with pick-axe handles and other methods that a mafia don would certainly appreciate."

Surely people who share Mr. Drissen's ideology would acknowledge that the Nestle marketing of baby milk skew the moral terrain of their arguments. (As Couze Venn has cogently argued, the ethics which govern oppression are morally incomensurate with those which govern resistance.) That's not to condone any violence, but to suggest that throwing 'protesters' in a big fucking machine and whizzing them all together and calling them a resistance milkshake is to miss the issue entirely.

Allow me to take a salient example. A good friend of mine was in Genoa in 2001 to protest peacefully. As he marched, a group of anarchists dressed in all black started throwing molotovs and fighting with the riot police. The whole demonstration was completely hijacked by militants. I guess this is the story of many struggles around the world. False dichotomies allow the status quo to be maintained without question.

2003-11-12T20:57:00.000+11:00

Nicole's blogging
yay!

2003-11-12T15:54:00.000+11:00

"The president gave a speech in Alabama a couple of days ago. Here is the key excerpt:
A free and peaceful Iraq will make it more likely that our children and grandchildren will be able to grow up without the horrors of September the 11th.

Sure sounds like Bush (re)connecting Saddam to 9/11, but even if that inference is subject to debate, the following is not:
If Iraq wasn't invaded, we probably would experience a massive terrorist attack supported by Saddam.

Does anybody believe that?"
(via uggabugga)

SBS aired Truth, War and Consequences last night. I'll let you decide whether Bush's circumvention of normal intel channels to produce the foundations of legitimacy was a smart thing to do. Check out what is at stake too.

2003-11-12T15:11:00.000+11:00

hard work

My job can get pretty demanding... (via. TNT)

2003-11-11T13:40:00.000+11:00

I'm not what you'd call a "car guy." I'm not a car guy in much the same way that I'm not a "dog guy" or a "syphilis guy," in that I usually want almost nothing to do with those things

How loose is your goose?

2003-11-10T15:58:00.000+11:00

two birds, one stone

***metaphysical warning*** Not to be taken positivistically. Seek professional advice if pain-in-the-arse persists
so apparently Private Jessica Lynch didn't go down fighting. The work I've spent a good deal of the past 3 months on places this whole story within a specific political narrative which the hawks out there have considerable investment in. It runs something like this:
"Going down fighting, the brave (blonde, white) girl was eventually overcome by a hostile ( tribal, misogynistic, patriarchal) enemy which stands in direct opposition to the modern values of liberty and equality [and fraternity?] on which this war is waged. That she was fighting to the last bullet shows just how progressive we are on giving access to women in the public sphere. Because, you see, Private Lynch is JUST as capable as any man in fighting a war. We are governed in the spirit of blind equality now..."

I would suggest that this narrative is actually told in an arena in which she speaks on behalf of her body. Because, significantly, her saviour from the hospital in such a dramatic fashion served to reinforce the hierarchy which is implicit above, because, of course, it is the men who save the day. The locus of masculinity that is the crack force combat troops were the only ones who could actually save the brave, but luckless, heroine from the jaws of the misogynistic primitives. This is not to suggest that the survival of Jessica Lynch is not a remarkable event, given the deaths of those in her Hummer, but rather the way in which her narrative has played out illuminates the deficiencies of women (as a non-masculine 'other') to emanate the powers and capacities which are determined to be valuable in a male/masculine order. What is at stake is whether a metaphysical association between (abject) fluidity and women's bodies can actually be challenged by a retelling of this narrative the way Jessica wants it.

Update: A detailed account of the incident of Lynch's capture. (via. CBS news)

Update again: Chris Monks does it again

2003-11-07T13:59:00.000+11:00

Friday Joke:

-----------------------------------------
Two fish are in a tank.
One says to the other "I'll man the guns, you drive."
-----------------------------------------

(via Rupprecht - get a blog dammit!)

2003-11-07T10:16:00.000+11:00

Marilyn Pauline Hanson

"Yes I thought I knew everything as a member of Parliament
But in so many ways I've learned so much from this."

-Pauline Hanson just after her release from gaol yesterday

Could this be the most valuable 11 weeks for advocates of social justice in political history? Just think ... the hardline 'hick'-right might soften their stand on criminal sentencing, see a new-found importance for parole, maybe even change their stance on mandatory sentencing of asylum seekers as they've vicariously clung to the bars from the inside ... and wept at the plight of those who've been 'failed by the system' and remain inside.

Articles of note:
They walk free, on a technicality?: I wonder whether David Ettridge feels like Hunter S. Thompson too...? well, minus the hat
Gympie MP welcomes them back: hicks in arms.
Oldfield on Hanson, Ettridge's release: transcript from Lateline last night.
She was always in with the wrong kinda folk: from North Texas Daily

2003-11-06T13:26:00.000+11:00

So if the Pentagon were a country, it would rank as the world's 14th-biggest economy - a fraction smaller than India and South Korea, but larger than the Netherlands or Russia.
(via afr)
The pieces slowly come together ...

2003-11-06T02:00:00.000+11:00

What IS at stake in the representation of the warrior??

"The confounding of sex and gender, as [Moira] (XXXX) argues, undermines subjectivity as the site of social practices, but rather leans towards Cartesian mind/body dualism. Such vacillation has important repercussions for the reproduction of these relations as a hierarchy of gendered signification. Therefore, to avoid such a reproduction, this essay show that consciousness, rationality and reason are not the exclusive terrain of the warrior. Rather, the body and the unconscious play an integral role in all aspects of society, and especially for our construction and representation of the warrior....
[Joe] (XXXX) extends this idea by suggesting that war serves to construct or constrain the forms of political authority within a nation or group through the legitimating instance of combat. This implies an overwhelming masculine investment in the image and capacity of the warrior, and a contingency between this figure and the institution that it serves."

my head hurts.

2003-11-04T23:32:00.000+11:00

check out space weather for info on the solar storm. very cool.

2003-11-03T23:06:00.000+11:00

THE WEREWOLF GOES TO THE PHARMACY

WOLF: Do you have razor blades?
PHARMACIST: Sure. What kind you looking for?
WOLF: I need something for a really, really thick beard.
PHARMACIST: Hmm, Mach 3 Turbo is really good.
WOLF: How's the razor burn?
PHARMACIST: Not bad.
WOLF: All right, I'll take 50.
PHARMACIST: That time of the month, eh?
WOLF: Oh, that reminds me: Also, tampons, for my girlfriend.

Fin.

(via ypr)

2003-11-03T22:59:00.000+11:00

potemkin village (po-TEM-kin VIL-ij) noun

An impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts.

[After Prince Potemkin, who erected cardboard villages for Catherine II's
visit to the Ukraine and the Crimea in 1787.]
(via AWAD)

2003-11-03T00:12:00.000+11:00

enough procrastinating already. Everywhere I turn, Freud is there staring back at me. At least I'm armed with intertextuality.

2003-11-02T23:48:00.000+11:00

oh, and one thing. I hate daylight saving

2003-11-02T23:07:00.000+11:00

Can't Blog ... Working

mmmmmm I'll see you on the other side of an essay and research proposal. Some time around Friday.
Intermittent, generic posting until then.

2003-11-01T01:14:00.000+11:00

"Other satirical Fox News bulletins featured in the show included: 'Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay', 'JFK posthumously joins Republican Party' and 'Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple'.
(via the spin starts here ... darl)

2003-11-01T00:39:00.000+11:00

10 years on

A decade without River

2003-10-31T11:35:00.000+11:00

pundit (PUN-dit) noun also pandit

1. A learned person.

2. A person who offers commentary or judgments as an expert on
a certain topic.

[From Hindi pandit, from Sanskrit pandita (learned).]
(via wordsmith.org)

2003-10-29T12:06:00.000+11:00

"Public Opinion was evenly divided on the necessity of war rught up until the eve of hostilities, but once the killing began, it was populat enough to boost Bush's approval ratings to over 90 percent, which is very close to those of the deity.
The Gulf War evoked a burst of nationalist religiousity that, although clearly manipulated by television coverage of the war, seemed to be both spontaneous and deeply felt. Flags appeared everywhere along with bumper stickers, T-shirts and buttons urging Americans to SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. As if flags were not sufficient proof of loyalty, they were joined with yellow ribbons, which had been originally displayed in solidarity with the U.S. hostages held by Iran from 1979 to 1981 and seemed to indicate that America was once again the wronged party or victim.
In effect, the war had reduced a nation of hundreds of millions to the kind of emotional consensus more appropriate to a primordial band of thirty or forty individuals. in their imaginations, Americans were being threatened from the outside, barely human enemy, always represented as the lone figure or Saddam Hussein"

- Barbara Ehrenreich on Gulf War I

2003-10-29T09:41:00.000+11:00

Weekly Dose:

- How Rock'n'Roll fell out of love with drugs
- Subsequent to an amazing documentary I saw on homeless kids in Bucharest: Russia's child alcoholics get their own clinic
- A similar problem in Scotland: Ecstasy is not the biggest problem
- Cambridge proposes a new approach in the fight against begging
- Olympic Gold medalist Calvin Tests Positive

2003-10-29T00:54:00.000+11:00

Davezilla

Discovered a new humour Blog - Davezilla - Check out the Anagram Interviews. Utter brilliance.

2003-10-29T00:43:00.000+11:00

You're Canada!

People make fun of you a lot, but they're stupid because you've
got a much better life than they do. In fact, they're probably just jealous.
You believe in crazy things like human rights and health care and not
dying in the streets, and you end up securing these rights for yourself and
others. If it weren't for your weird affection for ice hockey, you'd be
the perfect person.
Take
the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

2003-10-29T00:38:00.000+11:00

I just stumbled across a rather interesting outcome tree for the Iraq quandary written pre-invasion

2003-10-28T23:50:00.000+11:00

It's on again

"Grosz (1994) suggests that a Post-Cartesian cogito may not necessarily fall to a simple holistic monism, because an understanding of the body as lived may be violated by such a proposition. Rather she proposes the Möbius strip as a model for understanding subjectivity through corporeal signification, language and desire."

2003-10-28T00:21:00.000+11:00

Imagine: searching your books without turning pages

2003-10-26T22:21:00.000+11:00

dare I say - better than iPod (via Thommo)

2003-10-25T02:20:00.000+10:00

The Weekend that Was

a taxi driver who tells terrible jokes
A softly spoken Canadian chic
and an abrupt American one.
Long Island Ice teas
CounterStrike 1.6
too many beers
Drunky noodles
Freud
Grosz

2003-10-24T09:58:00.000+10:00

Noveau Surfer

Them: "Our problem with a lot of media that wants to be "cool" is that it tries too hard. Let me introduce you, (or reintroduce you) to the term "try-hard"." - Clarence Street reviews Radar.
Me: I have to wholeheartedly agree with CS (as opposed to c s). The aetioliated Herald must surely be coming to grief at the hands of the local Packer Demagogues if they need to stoop to SMS polls about fashion. And let's face it. Tele, and other News Ltd, stories are pitched at those whose reading age peaked long before puberty. (And that's not all that peaked then either).

Them: "Digging: Light beer, or as I call it, diet beer"
Me: The only people I know who dig light beer are over 30...

Them: Kill William
Here comes the Bride, yo
She's pregnant, then she's shot dead
But oh no, she's back.

Me: Tarantino reviews to the tune of 5-7-5 from those crazy kids at Discount Haiku. Nice one bruvva! (oops, wrong continent)

2003-10-23T11:26:00.000+10:00

C Monks has done it again

2003-10-23T11:19:00.000+10:00

they've vocative eyes and ablative purses
to take your money
if you will be dative and give so freely
you'll end up a genitive

---die parodie

via the utterly charming and brilliant Venus im Pelz

2003-10-23T10:29:00.000+10:00

Simpsons already?
I just hope that tomorrow
isn't squandered too