Friday, December 22, 2006

Freedom Hits 2006

True automotive freedom has to be 3 to 4 hour delays driving out of Wellington north bound on State Highway 1. Merry Xmas and thank Christ for the motor vehicle. I can just hear the collective anger, frustration, whinging kids... Just what you needs to begin your holidays. And if you think more roads will solve this you head is up your arse.

Thank god for America - I mean what would the citizens of Iraq done if they hadn't been libertated. The world is a safer place, and the citizens of Iraq must be enjoying the blandishments of democracy this Christmas. On another note "Iraqi insurgents", freedom fighters, terrorists, criminals, thugs whatever you like to call them have offered the US a 30 day truce to get the fuck out of Iraq on news of several more dead americans fighting for the continuation of the American Way of Life - What a choice, either leave the place to the Shiite death squads or continue sending Marines home in body bags, as long as you are able to fill up the Ford Explorer it's worth, isn't that right punters.

Imagine trying to sleep with the temperature 27 degrees C, at night. Melbourne is currently enjoying such conditions - nothing to do with Global Warming however, continue burning whatever you need to burn to ensure the economy ticks along at 3% growth per annum.

While we are on the topic of Australia, the drought is certainly putting constraints on peoples freedom to water their gardens and wash their cars. Once again - nothing to do with global warming I am sure...

Feel free to add your freedom picks for the year in the comments.

Share the love
Merry Xmas
Steve

Monday, December 18, 2006

Playing Favorites #1

I've been trying to convince Mark Cubey to invite me on to Saturday National Radio to play my favorites. Usually you have to be someone - like be on TV, or have written some book, or saved a swamp or something. I haven't done any of that stuff - but I reckon my favorites would rate.

My first track would be the natural rejoinder to the Beach Boys Surfing Safari - the Clash's Charlie Don't Surf.

The Beach Boys were the pin ups for the theoretical but mendacious post world war Amercan consumer culture where everybody would live in suburban utopia and embrace absolute automobile freedom. Sometime after the "good vibrations" faded away and like Elvis before him, Brian Wilson descended inevitably into a drug and alcohol induced stupor - obesity, paranoia and depression took over ironically mirroring American society today.

On the exterior the free world puts up a brave front - but it ain't easy work ramming freedom Vegas style down the throats of infidels.

Todays Charlie includes Iraqi insurgents, the people of the Occupied Territories (kia kaha), Lebanon and Syria, probably Muslims in general however when the Clash wrote this track Charlie was the North Vietnamese VC or Viet-Cong also referred to as "Victor Charlie", or ... Charlie for short.

I give you track one of my playing favorites.

Charlie Don't Surf - The Clash - (Sandinista)

Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star

Everybody wants to rule the world
Must be something we get from birth
One truth is we never learn
Satellites will make space burn

We've been told to keep the strangers out
We don't like them starting to hang around
We don't like them all over town
Across the world we are going to blow them down

The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can't free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their Coca Cola

It's a one a way street in a one horse town
One way people starting to brag around
You can laugh, put them down
These one way people gonna blow us down

Charlie don't surf he'll never learn
Charlie don't surf though he's got a gun
Charlie don't surf think that he should
Charlie don't surf we really think he should
Charlie don't surf

Charlie don't surf and we think he should
Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't no good
Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie don't surf

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Booyah!

The neoconservative geniuses who believed invading Iraq would bolster both U.S. and Israeli interests in fact have accomplished the exact opposite -- handing both military and public-relations victories to their sworn enemies. ... If the Bush administration dares to move militarily against Iran, as it has an almost uncontrollable itch to do, we will become mired in a bloody conflict that will know no borders.
Robert Scheer

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Creating 5 problems by solving 1

I remember when I was about 10 years old. The school I went to, this one summer, had a nasty wasp nest which of course held the attention of all the hubristic, testosterone ravaged lads of my age (including myself of course). The trick was to tease and irritate the wasps into a frenzy, then we'd all run around laughing slapping wasps off our legs, bodies and faces. Endless fun for 10 yr old boys.

Slowly but surely some of the lads developed and a courage that exceeded the potential of the situtation. One such boy, whose name will remain unsaid, stuck a fennel stick well into the wasp nest. Got it right in there and well fucked off the wasps. Well, within 5 seconds he was covered in a hundred or more wasps. There was little we could do as a group and he ended up in hospital for the afternoon. After that some pest eradication guys came around and killed off the nest - no more fun for 10 year old boys that summer.

I hope this summer is just as much fun.

**********
Just a few random thoughts
On another front I notice Obaid (ex Saudi Foreign Minister) has recently argued the US intervention in Iraq and it's recent murmurings of "an exit strategy" would leave Saudi little option but to take up the current US role of keeping Iranian backed Shiite militias from continuing their butchering of Iraqi Sunnis. There is already talk of Saudi providing the Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support - get a feeling of deja-vue, a re-run of the Iraq/Iranian troubles.

There are faults on both sides - however it's clear that if allowed to continue a program of ethnic cleansing by Shiite death squads would be responsible for clearing out the Sunni minority within a pretty short space of time. Saudi would have little option but to intervene thus sparking a regional conflict.

We can be pretty clear of one thing. The US are unlikely to withdraw while there is any question about access to cheap oil. The US are in Iraq primarily to secure a cheap supply of the commodity that keeps the not negotiable wheels of easy motoring life in the States ticking along. If a withdrawal threatened that supply, and in all likelyhood it would then a withdrawal is unlikely.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Far Quitery Knows No Bounds.
or, please do not post pointless points in my comments

The biggest flaw of the pseudo-philosophy called "objectivism" is that its principle tenents are a priori inalienable self-evident truths. Essentially this is a necessary condition for the belief that any particular act is objectively right or wrong. Additionally not helping the cause is the fact that the dogma is overly represented by juvenille pimply faced boys whom after discovering it promptly annoint themselves all knowing rational pedants ready to comment (logically of course) on everything and anything.

Now, I like to think of myself as a philosopher, but unlike Paris Hilton I don't always go out wearing my makeup. Generous helpings of narrative bullshit, satire, illogical mutterings, irrational polemic piffle, and off the cuff thoughts and notions is all wonderful stuff. Living your life with the stupid attitude that prompts you to attempt to logify every sentence you write or utter is about as boring and pointless as it gets.

The reductio of this position is inherent in this little gem by Kane Bunce. Now I don't know much about Mr Bunce other than what can be gleaned by his posts (and his occasional comments on various blogs) but by a strange paradoxical reason that just occurred to me governmental control is most certainly needed such that utter fuckwits like this don't get to make any decisions about matters of public and private good. Bunce is a cartoon of his own ideology. His ridiculous comments policy stands against everything his ideology stands for.

For your amusement I have assembled a brief selection of quotes from Mr Bunce.


  • "Why is it that Iran and North Korea are merely considered rogue states? Both are more than rogue states. They are a threat to the West. Western nations should pull out of Iraq and send their troops to these two countries instead. ... And while they are at it why not deal to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon?" (get in touch with the redneck within) These people are terrorists and the world would be a safer place without them, were gonna bring these suckers to justice!!!

  • "To teach a child, or an adult for that matter, that they have a responsibility to others will lower their mental health not raise it" What lower it below their nose, or below their crotch?

  • "No person has any responsibility to others" Oh, I wish I could apply this to my son sometimes.
  • "Is the extinction of great white sharks a travesty for humanity? No, I don't think it is. It is not a species we rely on to survive, so it is no travesty to humanity." It's just lucky we NZers rely so heavily on the kiwi.
  • "And he said a world without tigers would not be worth living in. Clearly he values tigers above humans." I think I might be overly valuing porn and alcohol.
  • "And as the science gets older it gets safer, like all scientists" It's just a shame the chemist that developed thalidomide wasn't 85.
  • "So we here in New Zealand will receive local cooling, which is contrary to global warming" Oh, this science obviously isn't old enough yet! What a relief.

nb. I think free speech is overated - therefore I have comment moderation turned on - I do not have a comments policy - I just make it up as I go along. I reject capitalism per se as a farce and a joke nevertheless I have little option but to participate in it - however I can think of better ideas, I have issues with democracy just because a majority of individuals believe something, it does not necessarily follow that it is either true or good. And I certainly do not believe in a fundamentalist approach to private property rights. That is overall I typically disagree with capitalism's consequentialist approach to ethics, in favour of perhaps a combo of deontological and virtue or character based approaches. Sometimes the ends never justifies the means. And if you disagree with that, well, you simply aren't thinking about it.

Joe Bennett and Asian Knickers

I've always like Joe Bennetts humour, ironic, satirical and kiwish. This article suggests, him and I, we're on the same team - on ya Joe.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Closing the Collapse Gap
by Dimtry Orlov


Article Sourced from Energy Bulletin

Highly recommended compelling reading !