Red Rag

The folks over at pMachine have responded quickly to the MT3 pricing debacle, offering people a free copy of the Expression Engine if they’re switching from another Content Management System.

Even at its full price, Expression Engine is far better value for money. Here’s how the two most expensive versions stack up:

Movable Type 3.0
Commercial License
20 authors
$699.95

Expression Engine
Commercial License
Unlimited authors
$199.00

That gives you some indication of just how badly Six Apart has set its new prices.

Here’s a comprehensive review and comparison of the two products. Obviously, MT is better in some regards, and old habits take time to change, but it’s certainly worth investigating Expression Engine — especially if it’s free.

So if you’re interested in trying it out — and I’d certainly suggest that the Ubersportingpundit and Gravett gangs look into it — head over to the pMachine homepage for details. But do it quickly, because there’s only 1000 copies going for free…

Movable Type 3.0 is here — but so are “major improvements in our licensing and support policies”. In other words, get your wallets out.

Graham Freeman has summed up the issue very well:

Everyone knew a paid version was coming. Many people, including myself, were prepared to pay for a new, improved version. But not at those prices. No way. Nah-ah. Especially not when the only added feature was a rather dodgy commenting system that would probably only piss off the lurkers.

As he also points out, there is now a wide range of (free) MT-like products available — including an improved version of Blogger — for free. And Wordpress has responded to MT’s move, saying:

I have been receiving emails all morning asking if I have any plans to charge for WordPress in the future. The answer is no, but my answer doesn’t matter. The license WordPress is distributed under — the GNU Public License — ensures that the full source is available free of charge, legally.

It’s certainly tempting.

James Russell points out that the new MT system is going to be very expensive for people like Scott Wickstein and the Gravett Empire — who I notice are already considering alternatives to MT.

If I was in full time work, I’d have donated to Movable Type by now. I’ve promoted Movable Type to other bloggers, and helped them iron out kinks in their installations. I would certainly consider paying for the new version — except that it’ll cost me upwards of 100 bucks for less features than I get from the current, free version. And the new free version is even more restrictive.

Frankly, MT-Blacklist has met my anti-spam needs very well. And it doesn’t scare off potential commenters (although Norman occasionally gets confused when something slips through the net), so I really don’t see the need to upgrade. Not at an “introductory price” of US$70. But if it was, say, US$30 and the restriction on the number of blogs was relaxed, I’d be more amenable. Then again, I don’t have a credit card, so I’d be ruled out anyway.

If you don’t like the new proposals, I’d encourage you to post on your blog and use Trackback to ping this entry so that Six Apart know what your concerns are. As P J Doland points out:

You would have to be insane to enable Trackback on a corporate blog. Look at the links at the bottom of Mena Trott’s post about the new licensing terms for Movable Type 3.0.

The mob has spoken, and it’s publicly viewable on the company site.

Join the mob!

Update: I’ve just noticed that MT3 Free will not include “a guaranteed path to future updates”. So it looks like it will be the last free version.

Update: A couple of other points:

The free version’s license says “You may install the Software on only one (1) computer or server having a single CPU”: how the hell do I know how many CPUs my host’s server is running? And why the hell should it make a difference?

Also, I’ve had a look at the blogs currently displayed on the MT “Recently Updated” list — that is, people who’ve voluntarily given MT money for a free service. They are not happy. And even Kottke thinks Six Apart needs to fix the scales.

Finally, I reckon Six Apart could ask a higher price if they weren’t using a heck of a lot of code provided to them (free) by their loyal users.

Iain Lygo recently wrote:

After a February 2004 speech at the Al Suds mosque in Lebanon, Hilaly came under a sustained attacked from sections of the tabloid media. The Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt and The Daily Telegraph’s Piers Akerman have repeatedly claimed Hilaly has “…praised September 11 as God’s work”. These claims are based on a transcript of his Al Suds speech, but do they stand up to scrutiny. … From the transcript, it is simply impossible to draw any definitive conclusions…

Quality journalism would track down the video recording of Hilaly’s speech. The recording would clarify this situation once and for all. The fact that the recording has not been produced by the Federal government indicates two possibilities. It clears Hilaly entirely and is consistent with his public statements in Australia condemning terrorism, or it incriminates the Mufti and has been held back to be released at a politically opportunistic time.

It looks as if quality journalism has finally done just that. SBS news only a few minutes ago played a video of the sermon, and asked an academic to translate. The translation was very different to the one offered by DFAT and pounced upon by the right-wing commentariat. It wasn’t the best sound-bite, but it was at least ambiguous and possibly defensible.

Gerard Henderson wrote at the time:

[T]here was no ambiguity when, in his Lebanon speech, Al Hilaly referred to the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Here he was crystal clear when he declared: “September 11 is God’s work against oppressors.”

On the contrary, there was a great deal of ambiguity — although certainly not in the version the Government distributed and upon which Henderson relied.

Al Hilaly makes a lot of stupid comments. Is it really necessary to fabricate quotations in order to demonise him — and other Muslims with him?

(Unfortunately, the SBS story is not available online.)

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Janet Albrechtsen’s latest rant against gay marriage is her weakest effort yet. She relies on the work of Stanley Kurtz to argue that “in Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where gay marriage was introduced, de facto unions and out-of-wedlock births have risen significantly”, suggesting that the two are linked. They are not.

Apart from the fact that there really haven’t been many gay marriages — Albrechtsen admits that “Scandinavian gays have not exactly rushed to the altar — there are countless other factors that influence marriage rates. In the article upon which Albrechtsen relies, Kurtz lists many of them: “Contraception, abortion, women in the workforce [back to the kitchen, ladies...], spreading secularism, ascendant individualism, and a substantial welfare state”. Forget all that, though — it’s all down to the bloody poofters.

Andrew Sullivan points out just how few gay marriages are to blame for the downfall of Western civilisation:

Between 1994 and 1999, there were a total of five registered same-sex partnerships [which Kurtz and Albrechtsen falsely call "marriages"] in the county Kurtz cites. Kurtz wants to explain the shift in that county’s heterosexual conduct by citing a mere ten people? It’s also true that in the period Kurtz is concerned about the number of marriages in Norway increased by almost 25 percent from 20,161 in 1993 to 26,425 in 1999. How does that square with the “death of marriage”?

Because the stats don’t support his argument, Kurtz claims that “statistics on marriage and divorce no longer mean what they used to”, and moves instead to a discussion of “out-of-wedlock” births as “proxy for rising rates of family dissolution”. Darren Spedale shows just how ludicrous this suggestion is:

One must also address Kurtz’s manipulation of the term “out-of-wedlock births”, which is consistently used in a disparaging manner throughout his article. The problem with his usage of this term, as used in his article on Scandinavia, is that it is meant to induce images of unwanted children. Many readers of this article, particularly Americans, tend to think of “out-of-wedlock births” as unwanted children produced by immature or unready mothers.

[...]

Probably the most telling proof of the fact that these “out-of-wedlock” children are wanted by their parents to create a traditional family is the incredibly low number of Scandinavian children available for adoption each year. In Denmark, for example, only about 25 Danish children are available for adoption each year in the entire country.

[...]

As an additional point, it should be clear from the above discussion that Kurtz’s claim that “rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution” is also misleading. The only thing that such statistics demonstrate is a continuing shift in the Scandinavian countries to permanent relationships of families in a traditional family structure (i.e., with children), who don’t hold a marriage license. Kurtz fails to prove any connection whatsoever between unmarried couples and family dissolution.

Failure to prove a connection between the alleged cause and its claimed effect is something at which Kurtz excels. I don’t think I can put it any better than Sullivan, so I won’t bother trying:

Kurtz tries to argue that there is a causation effect between registered partnerships for gays and the decline of traditional marriage. He proves nothing. There are so many independent variables – from secularism to contraception to cultural gender roles and on and on – that such a conclusion is intellectually preposterous. Kurtz does his best to hide this obvious truth. Check the words: the decline in marriage and gay registered partnerships are “linked”; they are both “an effect and a cause”; in the same paragraph, same-sex marriage has “undermined” marriage – then it has simply “locked in and reinforced” an “existing trend;” the decline of marriage “closely tracks” the emergence of gay registered parttnerships. Please. The decline of smoking in America “closely tracks” the success of Republicans in Congress in the 1990s. So what? These kinds of unsubstantiated correlations, slippery links and simple associations would be laughed out of a freshman social science class. Did no one edit this?

There is speculation that terrorist attacks have led to a fall in the Canadian divorce rates. Will Albrechtsen’s next column latch on to this groundbreaking research? Will she support the good work Al Qaeda is doing to protect the sanctity of an age-old institution?

I suspect not — though it would make as much sense as this week’s effort.

This column is interesting because its three protagonists are all bloggers: author Peter Martin, Andrew Norton, and John Quiggin.

Update: Andrew Norton has a correction to make.

George Bush:

I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families.

Tony Blair:

We apologise deeply to anyone who has been mistreated by our soldiers. This is totally unacceptable.

It’s an interesting contrast.

George Bush’s apology is passive: nobody abused the Iraqis, it just happened.

Tony Blair’s apology is active: British troops abused the Iraqis.

Only one of them comes across as sincere.

The South West Aboriginal Land & Sea Council has embarked on a “One Noongar People” campaign to bring together the 218 Indigenous family groups in the south-west of WA, in order to negotiate a comprehensive agreement between the traditional owners of the land, state and local governments, business and the wider community.

They’re looking for support from the wider community for their united front, rather than a costly, time-consuming piece-meal effort. Visitors to the site are urged to make this pledge:

I believe negotiations are fundamental to the achievement of reconciliation in our State, and genuine reconciliation can only be achieved by an agreement between Noongar people and the people of Western Australia.

Renegotiating the relationship between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of Western Australia requires respect for each other and a genuine commitment to reforms that recognise the continuing rights and responsibilities of Noongars as the First People of the south-west of Australia.

It is reconciliation, respect and recognition of Indigenous rights that will unify the community and provide the pathway for building a better present and future for Noongar people, and indeed the wider Western Australian community.

I encourage you to make the commitment to reconciliation with the Noongar people, by supporting a negotiated outcome that will greatly improve their economic independence.

I bought a digital camera the other day. I probably shouldn’t have, but what’s done is done so I might as well use it.

Here’s a few pictures I took while stuffing around with it last night. Perth readers will probably recognise the location — my brother plays trombone; I was at his concert last night.

Hmm. Just had to ban a Nazi commenter; I thought it might come to that, after I started getting hate mail (again) last week. I suppose that’s the unfortunate reality of blogging. Thankfully, MT-Blacklist is effective against more than just spam…

And while I’m on the subject, I might as well chuck in a link to Spam Poison (via RtS).

Alexander Downer is visiting the Northern Territory, and he can’t resist telling the NT Government what to do:

Mr Downer says one way of improving the Territory’s profile would be the appointment of an Asian Relations Minister.

“Because then there’d be somebody who dedicated his work or her work to networking in Asia,” Mr Downer said.

“I think that would be quite a good idea.”

That will no doubt be pleasing to Paul Henderson, who already holds that portfolio.

Surely the Minister for Foreign Affairs should have some knowledge of what is effectively a Territory counterpart?

Update: Sedgwick has, as usual, come up with the goods:

Oh, great, another anti-gay rant from Pell. This time, he’s got a list of benefits of “traditional” marriage:

Generally makes for a higher quality of relationship between a couple, including significantly higher levels of sexual satisfaction and fidelity.

Doubles the likelihood of children growing up with both their natural parents and building strong relationships with them.

Reduces the risk of early sexual activity for adolescents and teenage pregnancy for girls.

Increases the chances of children in their turn avoiding divorce and cohabitation and making happy and long-lasting marriages themselves.

Increases the chances of families avoiding poverty and building greater wealth.

Increases the likelihood that children will complete schooling, obtain post-school qualifications, achieve higher-status jobs and avoid poverty.

Generally ensures better physical and mental health for husband, wife and children, including, in particular, significantly lower risks of infant mortality, substance abuse, depression and suicide — some studies suggest there may be a link between rising suicide rates for young men and declining marriage rates.

Provides longer life expectancy and lower rates of illness, injury and disability for both men and women.

Provides the best school for values and reduces the chances of children getting into crime and of adults being the victims or perpetrators of crime.

Reduces the risk of domestic violence for women, compared with women who date or cohabit — and also for men.

Provides a significantly lower danger of child abuse and murder.

Apart from the one point that I’ve highlighted (and which I don’t see as being any more serious than the second marriages of divorced heterosexuals), I don’t see how the same benefits would fail to accrue to homosexual marriages, compared to de facto relationships and single parent families — homo and hetero alike.

The fact that marriage improves people’s lives so substantially makes the discrimination against gays more substantial — an even greater sin.

According to Dennis Shanahan:

For the first time, more people believe Australia should not have joined the US-led invasion of Iraq last year, according to a Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian.

Actually, it’s not the first time — most Australians opposed our involvement in the invasion of Iraq before we even invaded. It’s amazing how short some people’s memory is.

Update: Fairfax has joined the Alzheimer’s press.

It’s hard to write 2500 words on the philosophy behind Australian courts’ reluctance to grant interlocutory injunctions against the publication of allegedly defamatory material, when there’s perfectly good TV by which to procrastinate.

I’m watching Enough Rope, which is this week featuring John Laws, who has been very entertaining.

There’s been his continued insinuation of a homosexual relation between David Flint and Alan Jones, including a reference to the quasi-judicial closet.

There’s been his attempt to deny that he has power, or even influence — he’s just annoying, apparently. (I’d opt for “all of the above.”)

And there’s been his attempt to deny that his friendship with Paul Keating was connected to the fact that PK was PM. By Laws’ own admission, he has hardly spoken to Keating since 1996. And I wonder how often Jumbo Jim, the panelbeater from Leichhardt, has been invited to stay over — notwithstanding the fact that Laws much prefers him to Keating.

The fact is, Laws and Jones aren’t much different. They’re both arrogant, self-important wankers.

Now, back to The Church of Scientology v Readers Digest…