Red Rag

After my previous hopeful post about Iraq’s future, I had intended to follow up by arguing against James Russell’s comment that:

What I’ve always feared, of course, in the whole Iraq bullshit is that a dictator is exactly what they’ll finally end up with. Given that there’s been talk of the new Iraq government imposing martial law, they may indeed get one.

I was going to say that while I shared his fear, the imposition of martial law is not really the Iraq government’s choice: any nation facing the severe security risks that currently afflict Iraq would do the same.

But that was before I saw Lateline’s interview with Tariq Ali and (more particularly) Daniel Pipes:

I supported the war and I support the attempt to make Iraq into a modern and decent country but I think my Government, the US Government, went too far in looking to create a democratic new Iraq.

I don’t think that’s possible.

What is possible is an Iraq that is ruled by someone with a strong arm for some years who will over time move towards democracy.

So Pipes thinks the best we can hope for is a new dictator, who will of course gradually remove himself from power. Yeah, right.

And this is somehow compatable with the notion that “Iraqis ultimately are responsible for themselves” — it’s just that we can’t trust them to, you know, vote and stuff.

I realise that Pipes does not represent the official US view, but he certainly had a great deal to do with getting us into the war in the first place, and no doubt still has influence in the Bush administration.

Sadly, things appear to be heading in the direction I feared in my first post about Iraq, way back in January 2003. I hope I’m proven wrong.

The early rearrangement of Iraq’s power structure will not mean anything in the long-run, but it might throw a spanner in the terrorists’ works in the short term. Tim Dunlop explains by analogy:

When I finished high school, all those years ago, there were certain of our number who had a plan or two for some end of year “celebrations” involving teachers’ cars, rolls and rolls of toilet paper, shaving cream, buckets of water and high windows, and the like. In fact, I’d never seen so many people at school so dedicated to the planning and execution of anything. On the second last day of school, with everybody brimming with anticipation, we were all called into an assembly and told we could go home. Yep. They finished the school year one day early without prior warning and thus completely sabotaged the planned, um, “hijinks.” It worked brilliantly.

So I wish the authorities in Iraq similar success with their attempt to shortcircuit the rather more deadly hijinks there by handing over “sovereignty” to the provisional Iraqi government a couple of days earlier than expected. Anything that puts a dint in the plans of car bombers and armed insurgents has to be a good thing. It probably won’t stop a single attack, but it does give a slight psychological edge to the provisional government that shouldn’t be discounted.

I suppose at this stage, we should all pray to whoever it is we pray. Or cross our fingers, or something.

From today’s Sunday Times:

A political row has erupted over a plan to redesign the state’s 130-year-old flag.

Opposition Leader Colin Barnett’s legislation to officially recognise the flag and protect it from alteration has been sabotaged in the Upper House.

Premier Geoff Gallop guaranteed Labor support for Mr Barnett’s private member’s Bill but Labor MP and Upper House president John Cowdell has blocked the move.

Mr Cowdell has called for a public competition to redesign the flag.

The best designs should be presented with the present flag in a referendum at February’s state election, Mr Cowdell said.

“It is appropriate that the people be involved in determining such a significant state symbol, particularly in the state’s 175th anniversary year,” Mr Cowdell said.

He believed “many people” had grave reservations about setting in concrete a flag described as a “defaced British blue ensign”.

“The current flag was appropriate when WA was a remote colonial outpost, but not today,” he said.

“Let the people have a say.”

There was a backlog of about 45 Bills in the Upper House and it was unlikely Mr Barnett’s Bill would be passed before the election.

Mr Cowdell was prepared to defy Dr Gallop, saying the Premier’s decision to support the Bill in the lower house was contrary to Labor Party policy.

Labor’s platform says the present flag has never been determined by a democratic vote and there should be a competition to design a new one.

At last year’s State Conference, the following resolution was passed:

Labor recognises that the current West Australian State flag:

a.    has not been determined by a democratic vote by plebiscite or referendum of the West Australian people;

b.    bears the stamp of invasion (the Union Jack) which is offensive to many indigenous people; and

c.    is unrepresentative of the multicultural composition of our community.

Accordingly, the State Labor Government will conduct a State-wide flag competition to design a new State flag, the designs to be exhibited to the public and the most popular designs to go to a plebiscite.

The motion was passed without dissent. The Premier had an opportunity to oppose the flag competition at that time, but chose not to do so. He should be bound by the unanimous decision of Conference to oppose Colin Barnett’s jingoistic attempt to boost his profile, and John Cowdell should be congratulated for defending the views of the rank-and-file.

(I reckon a blue flag with a black swan on a gold disc would be fine — just get rid of the bloody butcher’s apron.)

I’ve just had a go on the free wireless internet connection in Fremantle. It works, and it’s fast.

The next Perth blog meetup should definitely be at a Fremantle cafe.

Tim Blair, rising to Phillip Adams’ bait, takes a pot-shot:

Adams writes: “I’ve always appeared bare headed, never worn a cap or, for that matter, any other form of headgear.” Really? Here’s Phillip in an old byline shot. The hat-wearing freak.

Gotcha!

Or not.

Tim has taken the Great Name-Dropper out of context. What he actually said was this:

In decades of appearing on talk shows hosted by the likes of Michael Parkinson, Clive James, Ray Martin, Andrew Denton, David Frost — and even William F. Buckley Jr — I’ve always appeared bare headed, never worn a cap or, for that matter, any other form of headgear.

Later, he wrote:

I’ve occasionally donned an Akubra. But only to protect my bald pate from inclement weather and never for appearances on talk shows.

(But that’s past the point where Adams mentions Blair, so we can hardly expect the blogger to have noticed.)

The picture shows Adams wearing an Akubra. So, credit where it’s due: in the absence of any evidence that the photo was taken during a talk show, Tim has succeeded in proving Adams right.

And that’s a hell of an accomplishment.

Well, I’m glad I go to university in Fremantle — Graeme Sutherland has set up a free wireless internet connection over the Cappucino Strip:

Barking Owl (my company) and Fremantle Technology have got together to create a really usable free WiFi service covering a good part of the cafe strip on South Terrace roughly from Gino’s Cafe to the Capri Restaurant, including Marconi’s, the Dome, Kulcha, etc. Coverage is best at tables outside but is quite usable indoors on the south/west side of the strip.

The service has a series of limits (traffic, bandwidth shaping, some blocked ports) to prevent big downloading and spamming.

Not enough to frustrate or annoy an email or web user, though, who will enjoy ADSL-like performance while sipping coffee of having a meal. As the service is in test at the moment, things may change, but basically it is there to be tested and enjoyed by the laptop and PDA carrying public in Fremantle.

We’ve invested some time and dollars to get things started, and we hope to raise sponsorship to extend and improve the service here in Fremantle.

Since I’ll be back at uni for the next week or so, I’ll have an opportunity to test it out.

Cheers, Graeme!

I eat McDonald’s. More often than I should, but not as often as they would like.

At least, I thought so until I read their response to Morgan Spurlock’s controversial film, Supersize Me (which I haven’t yet seen). There’s no direct link, as the company’s site is a bloated Flash monstrosity, but it says:

By the end of the 30 day experiment he ate as much McDonald’s as nutritionists say that you should eat in 8 years.

Let’s do the maths:

3 meals x 30 days = 90 meals

8 years x 12 = 96 months

90 meals / 96 months = 0.9375 meals/month

McDonalds is saying people should eat less than one meal per month.

Now, that certainly seems at odds with their famous Happy Meal campaign, which encourages children to collect a new toy — free with a meal — each week. Does that mean McDonald’s is telling kids to eat four times the “safe” level of their product? Makes Labor’s ban on junk food advertising seem like a reasonable course to take.

McDonald’s also seems to miss its target when it proudly announces that:

He super sized his meals only when asked, which ended up being 9 times.

Huh? One of Macca’s main lines is that Australia never sold super-size meals, but here they point out that he rarely ate them anyway!

He ate less McDonald’s than the title of the movie suggests, yet he still got sick. Wow, nice rebuttal.

Update: McDonald’s Australia’s CEO, Guy Russo, who stars in its anti-Spurlock advertising campaign, told Jennifer Byrne:

I eat at McDonald’s — because I work there — at least three times a week, and I’ve done it for 30 years.

Guy, what are you doing?! That’s twelve times the acceptable limit!

Or maybe his ad is full of shit.

Full marks to Six Apart. After many users (including me) bagged them for setting unrealistic and unexpected limits on new versions of their software, they appear to have addressed pretty much all of the major concerns.

The personal edition will now allow up to five authors and unlimited blogs, for a cost of $70. For $100 (which was to be the regular price of a personal license), you can set up unlimited blogs with unlimited authors. That’s a pretty good improvement, although probably still beyond my budget.

They’ve also given some indication as to the future of the price scheme — minor updates will be free, and existing users will get a discount on major releases. While a lot of the anger about MT3 was caused by an unexpected change in direction that took the community by surprise, I don’t think Six Apart will be dumb enough to do that again.

So that’s good news for one blogging community. Unfortunately, Dave Winer announced some infinitely worse news for the weblogs.com community: he took down all of their blogs, with no warning. Having suffered the occasional database drama, I know just how frightening it is to be confronted by the possibility of losing years’ worth of posts. Giving his users a couple of weeks notice so that they would have the opportunity to back up their site and move elsewhere, rather than log on to an abrupt eviction notice, is not “company-type service”, it’s plain old good manners.

People don’t expect something for nothing, but they do expect to be treated with courtesy.

(Links via VM.)

Malcolm Turnbull reckons:

His own preselection victory over sitting MP Peter King for the blue-ribbon seat of Wentworth had been contentious, rowdy even, but the very soul of the democratic process.

What a load of bollocks. Malcolm Turnbull and Peter King both engaged in a transparent branch-stacking competition. If Labor candidates tried anything similar, the media would maul them — why are they giving Turnbull a free run?

Tonight was the Perth Blog Meetup. I knew that by the time I got home, somebody would already have posted about it.

In attendance were David, Mark, Brett and his son (whose name I didn’t catch), Richard, Anthony, Geoff (whose address I didn’t get), Chris, Matt, and the lovely Manas.

Notably absent were Sam, Steve, Gareth, and Giovanni. Maybe next time.

I didn’t get photos of everyone, but you’ll live.

By the way, here’s the story I mentioned about the boy who used an online persona to plot his own murder by a friend. Weird.

Check out the rest some of the other Perth blogs at the wiki. And if you’re a Perth blogger, sign up for the next meetup.

The list on the Perth Blogs wiki is getting longer. Here’s an interesting one: the elements of her blog can be dragged around the screen by the user. Bizarre.

Sometimes it pays to keep things in perspective:

So this is what we’ve got: an Australian opposition leader says he’ll remove our troops if he’s elected and the Bush administration starts insisting this will be a “disaster.” The actual government of the Netherlands confirms they will withdraw more than five times as many troops, and barely a peep from the Bush administration. Perhaps we should be flattered.

(Thanks to John Quiggin for pointing it out in the first place.)

I was up in the Battye Library during the week, doing some research on Joe Swebleses. I left that section out of my honours dissertation because it didn’t quite fit, but I’ve gone back to it for fun. Yeah, I know, I should get a life…

Anyway, while I was there I noticed the library is testing the Scanwrite software, which allows you to scan microfilm images and burn them to CD. So I decided to pop in again today and give it a burl. It’s very easy to use, and I was plugging along quite well until I hit a snag: the demonstration version’s license “will expire after being used for 100 scans”. I was lucky 100.

However, the library hadn’t set up the computer very securely, and thanks to Microsoft Imaging and the microfilm scanner’s TWAIN driver, I was able to continue my work. (If I download the demo software to my notebook, I’m pretty sure I could bypass the library’s computer altogether. Simply whack the USB scanner into my PC, and use my own software to run the thing. That would save the cost of the blank CDs.)

I decided to take a look at the WA Communist Party’s official newspapers — first the Red Star, later the Workers’ Star. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, you can find them here. If you’re not keen enough to sit in the library, I’ve uploaded some of the scanned images for your enjoyment.
Read the rest of this entry…

Apologies for the delay in posting this, but perhaps it will not be too late for a few of you:

Narges Razavi and I have organised another fundraiser, like Bands for Bam. This time the proceeds are going to the shipping costs of 2 containers of donated goods (clothes, shoes, linen, books) being distributed in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Diocese of Mbujimayi and volunteers.

Cargo for Congo is on Friday, June 11 at Heat. It’s a new venue located at 187 Stirling St, Perth. The show starts at 8m and costs $8.

It features:

• Prawns With Horns
• Micadelic
• B-Movie Heroes
• Les Irrationales
• onefineday

There’s also a fabulous raffle prize to be won.

It’s been endorsed by the Greens, but don’t worry: it’s being organised by the benevolent genius Giovanni Torre and other Bob Katter Experience misfits, so it should be good.

Anyway, I might see some of you there.