In case you missed the announcement, I recently launched a new TPN podcast: The Peter Ellyard Show. Peter has been a good friend and regular guest on this show for several years. We worked together on his latest book, Designing 2050: Pathways To Sustainable Prosperity On Spaceship Earth. Peter has a massive amount of experience in environmental issues and as a futurist, so I decided he needed his own show. We’ve already got two episodes out, the most recent being an interview with WeForest’s Bill Liao, while he was at COP15. I hope you’ll check out the show.

The Crafty Hedgehog sells knitted version of dissected animals. Cool. See more.

This would be him.

This track came on my iPod today and I had to watch this clip again. Classic.

I just read this fascinating report on the narcosphere (Millennium Challenge Corp. poured millions into Honduras in months leading up to putsch) that describes the activities of a US aid entity set up by Bush (the MCC) in Honduras leading up to the coup against President Zelaya.

It’s well known that aid agencies are sometimes used as a front by the CIA for spying and funding regime change activities (such as its involvement with USAID, famously documented in the “Family Jewels” documents, which details a joint USAID-OPS operation concerning training foreign police in bomb-making, sabotage, etc).

Narco raises a lot of interesting questions about the timing, motivation, recipients and utilisation of the funding that MCC sent into Honduras just prior to the coup.

Dilbert author Scott Adams has a GREAT idea for reducing health insurance premiums:

First, 80% of healthcare costs go toward chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

Second, a huge study on diet and its correlation to disease, called The China Study, found that chronic diseases, particularly the ones I just mentioned, only get triggered if you eat a plant based diet, for the most part, regardless of your genetic propensity. (CR Note: I think he meant to write "DONT get triggered if you eat a planet based diet".)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

You might say it is unfair for the insurance company to charge a higher premium for earthquake insurance to people who actually live on a fault line. But I say that’s just good business.

What do you think? Should health insurance companies have better plans for vegetarians? And would YOU become a vegetarian if you knew your health insurance would be cut by 75%?

I was at this concert. I’ll never forget this opening number. It was TOTALLY INSANE. This video doesn’t begin to do it justice. Instead of the footage of the audience in the first 30 seconds it should have shown the stage. First thing you heard was the loud thunderous thumping. Then the top of the stage opened up and bright white lights blinded you. Then MJ marched up from inside the stage. Lights dimmed, smoke cleared, he screamed, everything exploded.

I still say it was the most amazing concert I’ve ever been to in my life. He was at his peak and – let’s face it – BAD was his last interesting album. After that he just melted down and become more freak than artist.

I was talking to Chrissy the other day, wondering who taught Michael how to dance – turns out it was a guy called Jeffrey Daniel. Check this video out:

Let’s remember though that the evidence seems to indicate that Michael was a very disturbed human being, a paedophile who only didn’t end up serving 20 years in jail because he could afford to buy his way out of trouble with $22 million of hush money.

And I don’t care that "he had a tough childhood". Yeah sure – being super rich and famous and talented must be a bitch. Guess what? Lots of people who end up committing criminal behaviour had messed up childhoods. And while we should definitely be understanding of that in our legal system, and recognize that emotional and psychological damage need to be treated responsibly, it’s not a ‘get out of jail free card’.

Unless, of course, you are someone who can spend $22 million on out-of-court settlements – like Michael Jackson – or priests in the Catholic Church.

At the moment I am still missing the following list of G’Day World episodes. This dates back to the server crash we had six months ago when we also discovered our backup system had been misconfigured. If anyone has copies of these podcasts and would be prepared to upload them for me, I would be extremely grateful.

Gdayworld shows missing from ftp:

59
68
104
106
126
141
156
163
175
180
184
195
198
199
213
214
215
216
224
225
228
229
230
231
232
234
235
247
277
278
303
304
305
306
309
311
314
331
337
338
339
340
345
346
347

Very cool!

(via Geeky Gadgets)

I usually don’t talk about my private life here, but today I have to make an exception.

My lovely girlfriend, Christine Dunaway (@fddlgrl on Twitter), is moving from Seattle, Washington to Brisbane in July! No, we didn’t meet on Twitter, we actually met on the island of Corsica last year while we were both there for the Napoleon conference. Chrissy  was there to perform at the gala dinner (she’s definitely NOT a Napoleon geek!).

Chrissy is a Suzuki violin teacher with 10 years teaching experience (she’s not as young as she looks!) and for the last year has been the Director of The Suzuki Academy at Seattle Music Center. As she’s moving to Brisbane, she will be setting up a new music school and will be looking for students to start immediately!

She will be looking for students from age 4 up to adults and from beginners to advanced in Brisbane who want violin lessons or viola lessons starting in July 2009.

Chrissy is a very popular teacher in Seattle (check out some of the testimonials from parents of students on her site) and I’m sure she’ll be just as sought after here.

So if you’ve got kids in Brisbane wanting violin or viola lessons – or even if you want to learn yourself – check out her new website for more information!

I have to thank @BrisbaneGirl for this one, she told me about it this morning over coffee.

It seem that back in January, Letterman invited the legendary Bill Hicks‘ mother onto the show to formally apologize in public for cutting Bill’s Oct 1993 stand-up routine from the show. Apparently Letterman and his producer were concerned about Bill’s jokes about Jesus. As Bill Hicks’ fans know, he died 5 months later from pancreatic cancer.

Not only did Dave apologize back in January, he played the banned stand-up routine. It’s pretty moving.

 Here it is:

Here are the first two parts of the full interview.

Part One

Part Two

David Simon, co-creator of "The Wire", the smartest TV show of all time, on Bill Maher talking about the ‘war on drugs’ and the end of newspapers. Watch it.

(all rights reserved maumeedb8)

This coming Monday (May 18th) I will be participating in a debate at QPAC on the topic “Can Your Mobile Save The Planet?”. I am taking the NO position (well I’ve been told that the position I have to take) and you know that I AM THE WORLD’S GREATEST DEBATER! I DEBATE ALL OF THE TIME. Some people have said that I’m a mass debater – but I don’t want to stroke my own… ego.

Anyway…

Details here.

There are still limited tickets available and as a special offer to the Podcast Network listeners you can get a ticket for just $25 instead of $45. Simply on the registration page click TPN Member – and use keyword “planet”. After the event is Mobile Monday Brisbane where Keith Ahern from Australia’s leading iPhone developers MoGeneration will be showcasing how to get into the App store… so if you’re interested in the latest mobile tech stuff come along to that as well.

Ajaccio. 06/07/08 6.35pm.

The somnolence of a Sunday in Ajaccio. A heavy drowsiness permeates your bones, muscles, brain, willing you to sleep, sleep.

Now, in the evening, a breeze blows in from the sea, and people come alive again, the ’second’ wind. The heat pushes you to stop in the afternoon, but relents at dusk and invites you back out to play. People rejoice in the reprieve like death-row pardonees.

The buildings are age worn, peeling paint in faint shades of dirty white, sad yellow, betrayed pink, dying pale green. All with shutters of canary-egg blue.

I’m sitting at “Le 1er Consul”, 2 Rue Bonaparte, drinking a Pietra, a Corsican beer. I can hear the fountains, cars honking, motorcycles, the drifting voices in French, tumbling over each other like waves on the shore. Pigeon’s wings flapping behind me, cooing.

The sky is completely cloudless and blue to match the window shutters.

I love listening to people speak French. They always sound like they are sulking about something. It sounds French if you pout and say any string of noises with the vowel sounds “oo” and “oh” and “on”. “Foo on coh soo”. And the “monsieur” at the end, the drawn out “ssss” always sounds like an insult. “Foo on coh soo too mo boo, mohsssssyoooor.”

The cheese I bought at the market today was hard and crumbly and oily and eating it felt like committing an act of child rape, something of the utmost carnality and sordidness. It was heavy and indolent and arrogant in its almost lack of flavour. It almost dared you to enjoy it. It was a 20-year life sentence in a closet-sized cell that tasted of urine and stale blood. It was a peasant’s cheese, a cheese to eat out of desperation when the cupboard was bare and your ribs were poking out and you had already eaten the scraps out of the garbage. It was the last straw cheese, the end of the world cheese, the back against the wall cornered rat cheese. A cheese you wouldn’t bring home to mother, a cheese that had spent its life inside a tomb, no light or air for 10,000 years, a cheese that contained all of the curses of all of the mummies, the mold behind the closet in the house that the old, old, impossibly old woman died in six months ago and they only found her when the neighbours noticed the smell cheese.

And I loved it. Tomorrow I’ll go back for more.

Tomorrow night on the live show I will have Steve McDonald ( @stevemc1) as my guest. Steve runs a company called Transendence which specializes in using the techniques of Spiral Dynamics to create organisational and social change. I was introduced to Spiral Dynamics and to the work done by Steve by @rosshill when he was staying with me a couple of weeks ago. I’m still trying to get my head around it and Steve will be coming on to explain it to us.

As usual, I’ll be pulling out the old guitar and playing some songs before and after the show. Plan to stick around for the after party, where I’ll also be talking about:

- Why I Believe Women Run The World
- I’ll talk a bit about the interview I did with Kalle Lasn this morning and why the Internet is bad for you
- My plan for the TPN 500
- Why Ashton Kutcher is a douche… or maybe the greatest genius of our time

Oh and this week I have a sponsor for my scotch!

Find out the details of how to listen and participate LIVE in the show here.

Famous music producer Phil Spector – the genius who brought us Let It Be, River Deep Mountain High, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, Unchained Melody, Happy Xmas (War Is Over), Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies’ Man, The Ramones Rock ‘n’ Roll High School – has been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Footage of his first day in jail has been leaked to G’Day World:

I’ve had a couple of people suggest I should compile a book of transcripts of the top 50 or so interviews I’ve done on G’Day World over the years, including people like Noam Chomsky, Ray Kurzweil, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hunter Lovins, etc.

Is there a market for such a book? Would you buy it?

Let me know here.

The big shock for me in this story is that Sesame Street only makes $145m a year? How is that possible? With all of that brand merchandising? I’m shocked. I’m sure the Wiggles make more than that. And they SUCK. (link via @thetowncrier)

Sesame Workshop, the US non-profit organisation that produces Sesame Street, is cutting 20% of its workforce because of the recession.

Read more on The Age.

If you haven’t already seen the “Sixth Sense” demo by Pranav Mistry that recently went up on TED.com, then STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WATCH THIS NOW! This is the future, people.

Read this article from New Scientist (quickly, before they hide it behind their firewall) and it will blow your frakking minds.

Craig Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”

As some of you know, the main source of my income at the moment is producing podcasts for companies and government departments. Check this site for the basic pitch. I can produce podcasts for anyone anywhere in the world. Obviously video podcasts are limited to where I can get with my camera, but I’ve been recording audio interviews with international guests since 2004.

Who needs a podcast? Anyone in:

- Marketing
- PR
- HR
- Training
- Internal Comms

Especially in this time of financial tightening, podcasting is a tool more companies should be using. It’s a very cost-effective way to reach the key members of your audience on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you’re going to produce social media, you should work with someone who has actually some experience producing media for large audiences and isn’t just all talk.

There are a few different kinds of podcasts my clients tend to be using at the moment:

1. The External “Transparency” podcast – this kind of podcast aims to make a client more accessible to their clients. It can be either video or audio and involves me doing interviews with people inside the company about what they (and their division) actually do. This typically suits a very large org that wants to soften or humanise it’s image. The strategy is that their clients/customers will subscribe to the podcast to get a better understanding of what each of the divisions is working on and how best to engage with them.

2. The External “Value-Add” podcast – this kind of podcast usually has content completely unrelated to the actual services and products of the org, but which is designed to be valuable to the target audience. Typically it might involve interviews with world leaders in the same field. Each podcast is wrapped with an audio or video header and footer, “This podcast is brought to you by….”, to keep the client’s message and brand in front of their audience every week.

3. The Internal Management podcast – this podcast involves video or audio interviews with members of the management team (CEO, CFO, COO, HR Director, etc) on a regular basis to go out to the employees via their intranet. It allows the senior leadership of an org to efficaciously communicate business updates with their teams around the country and world on a weekly basis and in a personable manner. It might also involved interviews with employees throughout the business. Who are they? What do they do? What is their focus? This is a great tool for encouraging cross-collaboration in large orgs.

4. The External Product/Service podcast – this podcast has to be handled cleverly. Most people aren’t going to subscribe to a podcast that’s just a marketing vehicle UNLESS it’s actually cool and informative or very funny. Often the best way to handle this kind of podcast is to get your customers involved. Get THEM talking about or demonstrating your products and services. Make it about THEM, not about you.

Demographics: There’s a common misconception that podcast audiences are still only the young tech savvy folks. While this was probably true back in 2004/5, it certainly isn’t any longer. The success of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, combined with the marketing of podcasts by mainstream media like the ABC, has actually skewed the demographic to a 40+ audience (according to the surveys I run on TPN’s audience each year).

So, here’s how you can help – if you know of anyone who might be interested in using my services, make sure you point them in my direction. In addition, if you email me the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the people in your company that fulfill the above roles, I’ll contact them directly and give them the pitch (ideally using you as a point of introduction but, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’ll leave your name out of it).

Here are my contact details to make it easy:

Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
tel: +61 400455334
email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com

Thanks for your support!

A few of us were talking on Twitter tonight about this famous story – which I’ve always assumed was written by Orson Welles for his 1955 film “Mr Arkadin” – about the scorpion and the frog.

I’ve used this as my expectation of people ever since I first saw the film 20 years ago. People will do what their character demands.

Finally! I coined a word!

impossibible:

A description of statements in religious books which are impossible.

eg “Jesus rising from the dead is impossibible.”

Urban Dictionary: impossibible

Lard

Originally uploaded by 1vintage1

Nothing more to say!

One of my new year resolutions was to start cooking properly most nights of the week. Not just my usual lentils and mushroom stiryfry, but amazing food that blows my mind. So I went out and bought one of Jamie Oliver’s books and I’ve made some amazing, mouth-watering stuff in the last week.

HOWEVER – I always find myself at the grocery store having forgotten to pick a recipe for the night and so I don’t have the ingredients list.

Now that I have a shiny new iPhone I came up with this hack this morning.

1. Scan a few recipes from the book into my Mac.
2. Drag each image into Evernote (I have a folder in there called ‘recipes’).
3. Install Evernote iPhone app.

Now, when I’m at the grocery store, I just pull out my iPhone, open up Evernote, and I have everything I need!

I should point out that I started off this morning trying to take photos of the recipes straight into the iPhone but the resolution on the camera isn’t good enough to capture text. However, this Clarifi case from Griffin seems to come with a built-in lens that gives your iPhone a boost in camera resolution. I might try to find one of those today. It would save me the scanning step.

While I didn’t know @dopaminekid or follow him on Twitter, I do follow @melbournegirl and this story is about as sad and fucked up as it gets. Hang in there @melbournegirl. It wasn’t your fault. He made his own decisions. You were honest with yourself and with him and that’s all anyone can ever expect of us.

meet’cha at ardeer station. – melbournegirl

reconnection

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

… goes to TheReconnection.com. I saw this flyer at a local cafe and got such a laugh out of it, I had to share it.

I especially love the second paragraph:

“The Reconnection (TM) bring in “new” axiatonal lines that enable us to standardize unique vibratory levels and frequencies for healing and ultimately, for our evolution. These axiatonal lines are part of a parallel-dimensional circulatory system that draws the basic energy for the renewal functions of the human body.”

Wow. And I often wonder how much bullshit is in *my* marketing documents. That takes the cake.

On January 1, 1959, General Fulgencio Batista took the coward’s way out and deserted his troops in Cuba and Fidel Castro’s revolution began. Whatever you think about Fidel and the revolution, it’s amazing that this tiny country, so close to it’s enemy who happens to be the most powerful military force on earth, has maintained its independence for five decades. I’ve just watched part one of Steven Soderbergh’s new film CHE (starring Benecio del Toro) and it’s very well done. I can’t wait to see part two. You’ll read a lot of criticism of the film, mostly from right-wing American publications, but don’t listen to them. This is an excellent film.

Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN’s special rapporteur (a person appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue or a situation and report to that body) on the Palestinian territories. On Dec 14, while leading a mission to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel’s compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law, he was held at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth, detained for 15 hours, and finally denied entry.

When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were

Richard Falk: My expulsion from Israel | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

If you are looking for the other side of the story regarding the current attacks on Gaza by Israel, I recommend the following blog post by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian democracy activist, Presidential candidate and Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Mustafa Barghouti – Palestine’s Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood | Sabbah

If anyone out there has a good collection of old G’Day World episodes – say from 001 to 300 – could you let me know? My old PC hard drive died about a year ago and I think I’ve lost most of them.

Rosanne’s belly

This morning I sat on a 90 minute panel at the Woodford Folk Festival with Rosanne Bersten (whose 8-month pregnant belly is seen on the right with a henna tatoo), Cristen Tilley, an Exec Producer with ABC News Online in Brisbane, and freelance journalist, formerly wtih Crikey, Sarah Stokely. The panel was mysteriously called “Can I Get A Witness” and not many people turned up. As is to be expected when you are on a panel with three journalists, they steered the conversation mostly around “who’s going to fund journalism”, while I, as usual, had the attitude of “let’s blow it all up and see what happens”. I got into a couple of arguments with Sarah about the cost of new media and why people don’t trust the media. One guy in the audience mentioned that the Australian military are trying to figure out how to use new media as a recruitment tool. Cristen said the ABC are desperate to get more user-generated content. Sarah mentioned Nick Holmes a Court’s recent scuffle with the NSW cops and we discussed the need for financial support for citizen journalists so they can get legal protection from police brutality and defend libel and slander suits. Rosanne used WikiLeaks as a great example of citizen media being used for serious, investigative journalism. In the final stretch, I said that 15 years from now, I expect that many of us will be wearing or carrying some kind of permanent video camera that captures everything we say and do during the day, which will be uploaded to a server, indexed against audio content, time and date stamped, with face recognition pulling out the names of the people in the video, and then some of us will make it public and some will make it private. People laughed but I was totally serious. Think back 15 years to 1993. Can you remember what your mobile phone looked like (if you even had one?). Mine was a LED Motorola brick. Do you think anyone would have believed that in 2008 we’d be walking around with 3G (what’s that?) and wifi (what’s that?) enabled iPhones, uploading our shit on the fly to Flickr and YouTube with 750,000 people following our every movement on Twitter?

The diving team estimates that around four million rounds of U.S.-manufactured Remington .303 bullets lie in the Lusitania’s hold at a depth of 300ft.

Secret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship | Mail Online

It’s almost worth (almost!) our recent problems to get this nice note written about us by the venerable Margaret Simons:

“The Podcast Network, one of the most notable  Australian new media success stories, suffered a massive technical failure over the weekend. If you don’t know about it, you should have a look at the Podcast Network’s offerings (once it is back online) to see a good example of why old media networks can not assume they will dominate the content making business in the future. But for the moment, the sites are in the process of being restored and rebuilt. Not good.”

Note: the bold is mine.

(Source: The Podcast Network Crashes in a Major Way – The Content Makers)

In case you didn’t notice, we’ve been down for a couple of days. As you can read on the TPN blog, it was due to a hard drive failure on one of the servers. We’re in the process of re-building and it might take a few more days. At the moment we’re missing all of the media files (audio and video). I’ll get these re-uploaded asap. Stay tuned.

I’m really enjoying Websinthe’s cartoon series.

OMFG. I’ve been dying to see this again for years!

Before I’d ever heard of Ricky Gervais or The Office, Microsoft UK engaged Gervais and Merchant to produce this training video. It was on the Microsoft intranet for a couple of days and then… disappeared.

A little while later I discovered The Office and have been dying to see this again since.

Imagine never having heard of The Office and then seeing David Brent appearing in something that appears to be a genuine training video….

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Wordle 2

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

I love this. This graphic shows the top words I’ve used on Twitter over the last 18 months, composed by Worldle (http://www.wordle.net/compose).

Deliberate censorship by CNN? A bad guest? Or just technical problems? You decide.

The Victorian police have killed again, this time an obviously troubled 15 year old boy who came at them with knives at a skate park.

I remember back in 2004 I had a debate, involving at least one cop, about why Melbourne police should be issued with tasers to avoid this kind of senseless death. Four years later and they STILL aren’t being issued with them. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

Obviously this kid needed help, not a death sentence. I’m all for cops protecting themselves, but in any team, at least one of them should be carrying a taser. Capsicum spray isn’t good enough. Christine Dixon – what the hell are you doing down there? John Brumby – she reports to you. This death is on you, buddy.

The folks at Think Big Magazine put their entire content up online for free, which is more than I can say for most business magazines in this country. Go here and you can subscribe for free. And then you can read the article about me that’s in their current edition.

CMD have released their 2008 Falsies list. As always, it’s interesting reading.

Learn about:

• PR industry tricks such as ” third party technique” and how the Pentagon has been using it to dupe American citizens;
• Which PR firms are taking dirty coal money to try to dupe people into thinking ‘clean coal’ is anything more than a line of spin;
• Which PR firm took China’s money to try to make them look better during the Olympics – and failed miserably;

The 2008 Falsies Awards: In Memory of the First Casualty | Center for Media and Democracy

Stephen Price aka lyynx did this caricature of me!

Smiley face 7

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

I had no idea this was happening tonight, but when I looked up and saw this smiley face I was BLOWN AWAY. Apparently, we’re seeing Venus, Jupiter and a thin three-day-old crescent moon. What the photo doesn’t show, though, is how amazingly bright all three appear against the stars in the sky. Venus and Jupiter look so bright, you’d almost think they are about to land on you. Is this Jesus looking down on me? Have I been wrong all along???

More of my photos here.

Daniel Bowen in Melbourne got a great shot.

fatalie shows us what we’re looking at.

Last night at BTUB I met Michael Meloni from Somebody Think Of The Children (along with lots of other great people) and we were talking (of course) about the Australian government’s absurd plan to filter the internet.

I’ve been wondering over the last few months about what we, the Internet community, can do to alter the decision of the Rudd government on this issue. Signing petitions and writing letters to the Minister are great, but I suspect they aren’t enough to change the course he’s on. This morning I was reading Howard Zinn’s awesome “A People’s History Of The United States” and he was discussing the many strikes that occurred in the USA during the 19th century and I started wondering if a strike is one way we can get politicians to take notice of our concerns.

If the IT and Internet community in Australia went on a general strike over the issue of Internet censorship, I have no doubt that we could cause many Australian businesses and government agencies pain. A strike by the IT/Internet community would also generate a lot of press.

Then I started wondering how we’d mobilize the community. We don’t have a union or any kind of genuine organization. There are groups like AIMIA and the AIIA but I seriously doubt they would support any kind of industrial action, nor do they represent many people working in the industry.

So we need to organize and mobilize. We need to create a single focus point for action. Any ideas?

Just realized that today is the 4th anniversary of G’Day World and therefore also the 4th anniversary of podcasting in Australia. A lot has changed in four years! And I’ve been fortunate enough to produce over 350 episodes and interview some amazing people. Thank you everyone for tuning in and for the continual support and encouragement.

Windows Live Account – Reset Password

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

WTF? I rarely use my Windows Live account. Today I tried to login but couldn’t remember my user ID or my password. Tried a couple of things but they didn’t work. So I went into the “reset your password” option. They give you two options – answer some questions about your location and your “secret question” or we’ll send you an email. As I can’t remember my bloody Hotmail password, the latter option is obviously no use, so I went for the first option – however, as you can see in the screenshot, that option is actually “temporarily unavailable” because i got my password wrong on the previous screen! No shit Sherlock! What kind of morons came up with this system?

Dear TPN listeners, viewers and friends,

You know that we spend a LOT of time producing our shows for you.

And as we aren’t making money out of advertising, we’d like to ask for your support to help us keep TPN running. We have real costs in IT support, hardware, bandwidth, etc., as well as our time and effort. For the last four years, we’ve covered these costs ourselves. Outside a small amount of advertising that we have run, the majority of TPN’s costs have been covered by myself and the TPN hosts have donated their time.

Now, we know that paying for online content is probably new to some of you. You are used to getting it for free.

However, we do ask you to think about the idea of the people funding their own media. We all know that if corporate advertising is the main source of funding for the media, it influences the kinds of media that is produced and the messages they carry. We don’t want that kind of media to be the only kind out there. We want an independent media, run by the people and for the people.

If you want to support our efforts to bring you intelligent and entertaining content, please consider one of our donation plans listed here at the TPN Pledge Drive page.

Your support is appreciated!

cheers,
Cameron

On the US bailout, George Monbiot writes:

According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700bn of dodgy debt by the US government “is financial socialism, it is un-American”. The economics professor Nouriel Roubini calls George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke “a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America”. Bill Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an advertisement in the New York Times attacking the deal, calls it “trickle-down communism”.

One of the best studies of corporate welfare in the United States is published by my old enemies at the Cato Institute. Its report, by Stephen Slivinski, estimates that in 2006 the federal government spent $92bn subsidising business. Much of it went to major corporations like Boeing, IBM and General Electric.

Read more.

Why isn’t Obama saying these things?

Antony Loewenstein is an a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger whose latest book, The Blogging Revolution, is “a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes – many of them risking their lives in doing so.”

{Photo:Bryan Siebel}

Sources of global dissident blogs:

Global Voices Online

Wordpress.com:tag:dissident

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

I’m with Michael Moore on this one.

Meeting Everett True isn’t what you’d expect.

When I went to his house a few weeks ago, I expected to be confronted by Spider Jerusalem in the flesh. Instead I was greeted by someone looking like a middle-aged accountant. Quite the anti-climax.

But the man is still the man. Who is Everett True, I hear you ask? Is he:

a. the man who introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love?
b. the first music critic outside of Seattle to do a story on Nirvana?
c. the man who outraged the Australian music industry by denouncing some top Aussie bands as
“abominations against nature” and suggesting the local music press are all sycophants?
d. the man who wrote the definitive biography on The White Stripes?
e. the man who writes a regular column for VillageVoice.com and The Guardian?
f. the publisher of PLAN B magazine?

If you answered “all of the above”, then you’re a complete smart-ass as it wasn’t even one of the options. But yeah you’d be right.

Listen in as we discuss the future of the music business, why Nirvana was “the most overrated band of all time” and The White Stripes would be nothing without Meg.

This is what he looked like back then:

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

In my ongoing attempts to coin at least ONE WORD which makes it into the dictionary, I tonight stumbled upon “impossibible” which I define as “any claim found in a religious book which is obviously impossible”. Here’s how you use it:

“Jesus rising from the dead is obviously impossibible.”

Just when I was congratulating myself that my Napoleon podcast was the greatest thing to happen to teaching history since the Christians realized that if they killed their enemies and burned all their books then they had total control over “the truth”… Bron introduces me to DRUNK HISTORY. Totally brilliant. I’m sick with jealousy.

This is the follow up review to the interview I did a few days ago with Karen Paterson, Head of live! Services at Vodafone Australia and David Loiterton, Managing Director, Australia, Omnifone.

This being week three of “The Season Of Cam” – which, as you all know, runs from Sept 10 through my birthday on Oct 10 (a public holiday in many countries) through to Nov 10 – the presents are coming thick and fast from Camalista’s all over the world.

Best gifts so far received:

Magnetic Finger Puppets of Napoleon and Che from Bron:

Lunch at Belle Epoque with Tim O’Dwyer (note the absinthe fountain):

A dvd full of 51 genuine revolutionary songs from Marcelo Castro:

And the Season of Cam is still young! This year, instead of pointing you to a list of gift suggestions, I expect you all to demonstrate your intimate knowledge of me by picking gifts you know I’ll love. Can you out-do the current winners?

I’m at the MediaConnect Influence event again this year (they must have forgotten what happened last time I was here) and the opening keynote is by the CEO of NICTA. Dr John Judge from NICTA is also here showing off their robot-controlled clarinet which won first place in the ARTEMIS Orchestra competition in Athens a couple of months ago.

The robot’s “mouth” uses two servomotors that apply force to the clarinet reed to make a sound. The smaller servomotor mimics the action of the human tongue, while the second applies a damping force to the reed, copying the action of the human lip. Force is applied to the clarinet keys by brass plungers with rubber or nylon feet depending on the key. “It is conceivable that in the near future, we could see an entire orchestra made up of computer-driven instruments like this clarinet,” said NICTA Chief Technology Officer Dr Chris Nicol, “They will interpret a musical score and follow a conductor.”

If you want to stay up to date with other news from the event, keep an eye on Twitter.

Great video below of William Shatner explaining how easy it would be to bring Capn Kirk back from the dead. And he’s spot on! The Enterprise teleporter would have Kirk’s entire molecular signature! All you need to do is re-materialize him! I ROFLd my ass off when I saw how easily Shatner out-did JJ Abrams. To read the full story of Shatner v Abrams, go here.

An infomercial for Tex Perkins and His Lazyboys album “No. 1’s & No. 2’s”. This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time and it’s also the best viral marketing idea I’ve seen in ages. I think it’s going to go off. And the best thing about it is – this is exactly the kind of schmaltzy act you’d expect to see at places like Crown in Melbourne – but Tex is taking the piss out of them… and making money from doing it at the same time. Brilliant!

As Tex says:

Hi, my name’s Tex Perkins and I was huge during the early 90’s (a golden period for scumbag indy rockers). Having endured a 25 year career in the music biz, I’ve done and seen it all.

It was then we came upon THE IDEA: I would record an album of classic cover versions, songs so good, so irresistible, so well known, so…classic, that the general public would have no choice but to hunt down, buy and love a bunch of songs that they can hear on Gold fm pretty much every day of the week anyway….. hmmm….

I’m going to make my interviews available to businesses who want to re-distribute them from their site.

Watch the video and click here for more info.

Oh yeah I want this!

You can also get the Fidel action figure:

If I had both of them I’d stage re-enactments of the Cuban revolution on my living room floor. I wonder if you can get Batista, JFK, Khrushchev and the Granma as well?

Don’t forget it’s my birthday on Oct 10. With shipping times factored in, you need to order TODAY. It’s time for an outpouring of Cam love.

UPDATE:

Actually this Che figure is even better! He looks badass.

“There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”

Ezekial 23:20

I kid you not.

Thanks to Andrew Sayer to the link!

I’ve been recording some podcasts for Tourism Queensland, interviewing tour guides around the state about some of the unique Queensland experiences – eg diving off the Great Barrier Reef, catching a “River Train” through the Daintree rainforest, etc. Check out the first shows in iTunes.

I spotted this on Cryptomundo and got a giggle out of it.

This morning I was given an opportunity to interview Hilary Mine, Alcatel-Lucent’s Managing Director Australasia and North Asia, about the launch of the Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge 2008 they did this morning in Melbourne with Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

The Challenge looks to award the Eckermann-TJA Prize ($10,000 provided by Alcatel-Lucent) for the best paper on broadband telecommunications applications and/or solutions that have the potential to deliver significant benefits to environmental sustainability.

Hilary and I discussed how the Challenge came together (this is its second year) and some of the ways that broadband might be able to contribute positively to environmental sustainability. Hilary mentioned that she telecommutes one day a week to show her senior team that it is possible and practical. I think more large Australia companies should be encouraging their staff to telecommute. As I mention in the show, we were talking about this stuff back at Ozemail in 1996 and it surprises me that it isn’t more commonplace yet.

More information about the competition can be found at www.tsa.org.au. Entries close Monday 6 October 2008.

To be completely up front (as you know I always am), this is a paid gig and my client is Alcatel-Lucent.

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

You know how I’m a big Napoleon geek, right?

Well a photo I took of Napoleon’s tomb in Paris back in 2004 has been selected for the Schmap Paris Guide! Check the link below.

Everton Park needs new cleaners

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

This was taken on the intersection of South Pine Road and Stafford Road in Everton Park today. It’s disgusting.

In the comments section to my post on the Pentagon’s propaganda, Marcelo pointed me to this post in ConsortiumNews.com about how Bush and the American media are screaming about Russia’s invasion of Georgia is pretty interesting.

Apparently, context is everything. So, the United States attacking Grenada or Nicaragua or Panama or Iraq or Serbia is justified even if the reasons sometimes don’t hold water or don’t hold up before the United Nations, The Hague or other institutions of international law.

No one points out that Bush should have zero standing enunciating such a principle. Iraq also was a sovereign nation, but Bush invaded it under false pretenses, demolished its army, overthrew its government and then conducted a lengthy military occupation resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I wasn’t aware of all of the background to the South Ossetia War but this Wikipedia article contains some interesting information.

A few weeks ago I had director Matt Norman on the show. We talked about political protests at the Olympics (with reference to his Uncle Peter Norman’s protest at the 1968 Olympics). There was some debate afterward in the comments section about whether or not the Australian Government has gagged our athletes. It turns out they don’t have to – the IOC has done the dirty work for them.

Jason Slater told us how it works:

# Jason Slater Says:

Just so you are all aware, Matt Norman made a great point in an interview i’ve just heard.. The athletes are being gagged by the AOC as they have signed what he called a section 51 which states “Athletes may speak about Political issues but if they do so will not be entitled to any financial gain through winnings from Gold, Silver or Bronze medals”. They are also entitled to speak their mind but not AT the Olympics and not AT the Olympic Village. They are also NOT allowed to wear any type of free tibet t-shirt or carry any banner which has any political affiliation. The facts are very clear. To protest in China you will never be a part of the Olympic team again and your views of civil and human rights issues will not be tolerated unless you do or say something about it outside the country.

I found this site which contains the clause in question. Basically any athlete that does speak out or even wear a badge signifying a political protest can be kicked out by the IOC. What an appalling state of affairs. The Olympics brings athletes from the world together but then gags them. Pretty fucking lame for an event which is supposed to be about peace and harmony.

Somebody on Twitter called me a jerk the other day for saying the Olympics was all about money. He said “Realize we have one place in the world -right now- with everyone together.”

Oh bullshit. Ever heard of the United Nations? The whole world gets together ALL THE TIME to discuss solutions to real problems, not running around in circles and jumping up in the air. Get the hell over it people. It’s a carnival, it’s not the second coming of Jebus.

The media loves it because it’s just another chance to them to increase their advertising revenues, as if people watching the Olympics really care more about buying tampons than they do on regular days.

So the media turn up their hype-o-meters, ranting and raving about the Olympics like it’s a cure for cancer or Britney Spears turned out to be the Messiah. And you pack of salivating Pavlovian dogs run slobbering up to your TV or your paper gobbling it all up like Homer Simpson chasing a donut. It’s obscene and sickening. WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE. It’s just a bunch of steroid-laden children seeing who’s got the biggest dick.

What I hate the most (not that I’m watching, but I’m recalling a distant time when I did watch 5 or 10 minutes of it) are the television commentators who call bullshit like “HE’S TAKEN THE GOLD FOR AUSTRALIA!!!”

No. Noooo, he hasn’t. He’s taken the gold for HIMSELF. HE is the one that gets the sporting goods sponsorship. HE is the one who is going to turn his sporting career into another lame television gig once he’s over the hill. HE is the one who is going to use his profile to charge $10,000 an appearance for corporate speaking fees. He’s not doing it for Australia. He’s doing it for himself.

Meanwhile…. Russia invades Georgia on the opening day of the Olympics and hopes that no-one notices.

Meanwhile…. Thailand’s ex-Prime Minister has escaped, once again, back to London instead of facing corruption charges in his own country. And the Brits let him in.

Meanwhile… the US-backed Philippines “liberate” more villages.

Meanwhile… China spends $40 Billion on hosting the Olympics and $100 million on the opening ceremony alone while 130 million Chinese live below the poverty line.

And how much press coverage of the opening ceremony did you see that even SUGGESTED it is a total waste of money? Any at all? Or were they all jerking off about it? I didn’t watch it, so I don’t know, but I can take a guess.

Over on Brisbane Norg tonight I read a post by Durx on a UK online bookstore called The Book Depository. He sez:

…a few weeks ago I came across a British website selling books, cheap and with free “world wide delivery”. I had to give them a try. So I found my way to www.bookdepository.co.uk and ordered my first title from them, How to lose friends and Alienate People, an awesome look into the life of a guy with all the opportunities and none of the motivation. I loved it. However back to the website. The books were ordered, quickly and easily. The website is very user friendly, searching and checkout also easily navigated and quick. Postage was SO quick, well packed and of course as mentioned free.

So I checked out the site and did a quick comparison, using my friend J. David Markham’s new book “The Road to St Helena: Napoleon After Waterloo” as a test subject. I compared Book Depository with Amazon UK.

It turns out I didn’t need to, as Book Depository automatically show you on their site what you would pay on Amazon! Nice work!

Book Depository Price: £12.86
Amazon Price: £13.99 (+ normal shipping: £2.75) Total: £16.74

So you’re saving at least $8.50 AUD, probably more, as that shipping amount is for the UK and not Australia.

This “free delivery” business reminds me of all of the dotcoms in the late 90s who tried it.

So who are these crazy kids? It looks like a couple of their management team are actually ex-Amazon UK and they’ve been around since 2004, which is longer than most of the 90’s dotbombs survived.

I’ve just tested it out by ordering a copy of “In Praise of Slow” by Carl Honore, something I’ve been meaning to read for ages.

On today’s show I’m joing by Sophie Peer, China Campaign Co-ordinator for Amnesty International, Fi Bendall from the Bendall Group, and Ben Barren, social media baron, to discuss the online campaign Amnesty have run over the last 3 weeks to raise awareness of China’s human rights record. The campaign asked Australian bloggers to unite and support their Chinese counterparts who have been banned, blocked, denied and imprisoned by the Chinese government for using the Internet to express their right to freedom of speech. The destination site for the campaign was UNCENSOR.com.au. The other site they recommend on the show is Stilgherrian’s blog.

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests.

This is one of the most beautiful man-made objects I’ve ever seen. Bow down before the engineers who built this, people.

(title of the post obviously courtesy of xkcd)

Once again this year, for the 4th year in a row, my old mate Ewan Spence is podcasting daily from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for TPN, talking to comedians, musicians, the audience, event managers, and anyone else who isn’t frightened off by Ewan’s pet crow, Crow. Don’t miss it – these shows are always terrific!

The boys and I made our first beeswax candles today, in product trials for our new business, The Kids Candle Company. Check out the video!

Yeah I know I’ve been quiet for a few weeks. I expected to have more time / bandwidth in France than I ended up getting. And I’m currently editing a podcast that I recorded in Ajaccio with an Israeli historian Allon Klebanoff about J. S. Bach which will be up soon. Meanwhile, I’m crazy busy with client work and family stuff.

This week I’m also interviewing pop star Leo Sayer (who’s “Living In A Fantasy” album was the first LP I ever bought and it’s still a favourite) and I want to do a show about American anti-war activist Howard Zinn who I was recently introduced to by a new friend I met in Ajaccio.

My trip to France was AMAZING by the way. I should do a show on that as well at some stage. I wish I’d kept my video camera on all the time so I could record the “Buskers Of Paris” podcast. I met loads of new friends, many of whom you’ll meet via the show over the coming months. I met a couple of Israeli historians (in addition to Allon) who will come on to discuss the roots of anti-Semitism and a Swiss-Cuban ballet journalist / historian who will come on to debate the legacy of the Castro regime with me. And much much more.

Of course I also recorded all of the Napoleonic Society’s congress in Corsica and shot a bunch of video in Paris with my Napoleon co-host David Markham, all of which will be coming out on a DVD pack in the near future (yes, you’ll have to pay for it you cheap bastards).

So…. I’m BACK with a fury, ladies and gentlemen. Get ready to rumble.

So while I was in France I was presented with the quite-prestigious “Legion Of Merit” award by the La Société Napoléonienne (aka the International Napoleonic Society) for my “contribution to the promotion of Napoleonic history” via the Napoleon podcast I produce on TPN.

As you can see, I’m the 97th person to receive the award. It’s quite a thrill for a long-time Napoleon enthusiast such as myself, especially considering I’m neither a scholar nor a historian.

On my first trip to France four years ago, I visited all of the Napoleonic sites and dreamed of one day making a contribution to Napoleonic history. That was before I’d even heard of podcasting. So to be presented with this award four years later is pretty cool. Let that be a lesson to all you kids out there – you too can wear big gold bling around your neck. No wait, wrong lesson. Hmmm, let me refer to “CAMERON’S BOOK OF LESSONS”… oh yeah, here it is – “What You Conceive and Believe You Can Achieve”.

I think there are some videos and photos of me receiving the award which I’ll post up when I get them. Currently I’m still sitting in Changi Airport on my way home. It’s a SEVEN HOUR stopover. Unbelievable.

Today is day three in Ajaccio and I’m having an awesome time. This is my 2nd trip to Ajaccio (the first time was in 2004, just after I left Microsoft and before TPN) and I absolutely am in love with the place. Think Cuba but with modern cars and without the economic sanctions, and you’re pretty close. It has lots of old, beautiful but dilapidated buildings, lots of cobbled laneways filled to the brim with outdoor cafes and restaurants and bars, a hundred Cuban cigar stores (”Tabac Le Havana”), breath-taking mountain views across water filled with yachts, folk musicians playing bawdy French folk songs in restaurants, etc. I’m here with a terrific bunch of people, academics from around the world, scholars, musicians, and they are all wonderful, passionate, and hugely intelligent. I’ve spent many hours discussing Judaism, Israel, the Holocaust and the Palestine question with a party of Israelis scholars in their late 80s, who were alive during WWII, and I hope to get them recorded for the show before I leave.

We’re all staying up very late each night, drinking chestnut whisky, smoking Cuban cigars, in outdoor bars, debating religion, politics, history, art, you name it. I’m in my element.

Internet access is spotty though, so I’ve hardly been online and haven’t churned out any podcasts yet, but I hope to before I leave.

I nearly missed my connecting flight from Changi but, apart from that, the 28 hour trip (door to door) here went smoothly. It took me an hour to get through customers, an hour to get to the Latin Quarter where my hotel is… and then another 90 minutes while I walked around LOST because the map I’d printed out from Google Maps was WRONG. I’m bad enough following directions as it is, but it doesn’t help when the map you’re using is about 5 blocks out.

After I checked in, had a shower and a nap, I headed out to Notre Dame for a quick look. I was planning on sketching it – I have a goal to complete one sketch a day while I’m here – but it was raining. I bought a book from Shakespeare & Co (Henry Miller’s “Quiet Day In Clichy”) and ended up sketching the Pantheon when the rain finally stopped.

Now I’m sitting in an Aussie bar not far from my hotel (Hotel Home Latin), using their free wifi, before I head out to catch some jazz at Cafe Universal.

It turns out Nick Randolph (former TPN host) is here as well so we’re going to hook up tonight for a drink! We just hooked up over Skype when he saw my status message.

Paris is brilliant. This is my second time here and it is seriously the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to. I’ve got to live here. Soon.

I fly out today to attend the International Napoleonic Society’s conference in Ajaccio, Corsica. I’m spending a week there and a week in Paris. My co-host of the Napoleon podcast, J. David Markham, and I will be shooting video podcasts from Les Invalides (where he’s buried), La Malmaison (where he lived with Josephine), Arc de Triompe (which he had built to commemorate his victories), the Louvre (which contains lots of paintings of him), Musée de l’Armée (which contains lots of memorabilia, his hat, coats, etc), and from the house where he gre up in Ajaccio and on Elba where he lived out this first abdication in 1814. It’s going to be a busy trip!

I’m also planning to visit many of the Henry Miller sites around Paris as I’ve been reading a lot of his and Anais Nin’s work over the last few years since my last trip to Paris in 2004.

I’ll try to do a few shows while I’m over there. So stay tuned!

My guests tonight are a couple from Melbourne who we’ll call “Bazza” and “Shazza”. For the last five years they were franchisees with Gloria Jean’s Coffee. They’ve come on to discuss their experience.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been taking an interest in Gloria Jean’s over the last few years (read earlier posts here), especially in the relationship between Gloria Jean’s Coffee, Hillsong Church and Mercy Ministries.

As you might be aware, there have been allegations over the last six months that Mercy Ministries has been treating it’s clients (mostly “troubled” young women) with techniques including exorcisms and prayer readings.

Even Gloria Jean’s Global Marketing Manager has commented on the blog in an attempt to provide their side of the story.

So I was pleased when Bazza and Shazza agreed to come on to share an insider’s story.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

If you’re wondering what the opening quotes are from on today’s show, it’s the opening lines from Rimbaud’s “A Season In Hell”.

An interesting story… apparently “great apes” – that is, all non-human members of the biological family Hominidae which includes chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans – are soon to get full human rights in Spain.

They won’t be able to be kept captive, used in experiments for in television commercials. This outcome is the work of The Great Ape Project, which was co-founded by Peter Singer, a Melbourne-born philosopher who is currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

But why stop at hominids?

I’m sure Singer would like to see all animals share the same rights as humans but hominids is the low-hanging fruit. They share so much DNA with us that it’s easy to make the case that they should enjoy the same rights.

Personally I’d like to see similar laws in Australia and I’d also like to see them extended to all mammals.

Imagine a world where it was against the law to put a cow or a sheep or a kangaroo behind a fence or in a cage, let alone kill them for food.

We’d be forced to re-think our entire relationship with other species. We’d be forced to re-think our entire way of life.

Back to Spain… amazing to think that the country that only abolished the Inquisition less than 200 years ago has now legalized gay marriage and is about to give full human rights to apes and chimps. Any Spanish folks out there? I’d love to know what you think about how Spain is leading the world on these issues.

Now that Bill Gates has left his day-to-day role at Microsoft, I feel compelled to write something.

Last week ABC TV’s Lateline program contacted me asking if I would be prepared to “balance out” the positive coverage of Gates for their show. I informed them that they were asking the wrong bloke – I’m a huge Gates fanboy. I may be using a Macbook Pro as my main working PC these days, and I may think that Microsoft’s best days are long behind them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the importance Bill has played in the history of computing and the history of the human race.

About 12 years ago I was working at an ISP, Ozemail, and I remember lots of the techs there bagging Microsoft on a daily basis. They were mostly Linux geeks. I remember pointing out to them that none of us would likely have a job without Gates – that the low-cost “computer on every desktop” that we all benefited from was the result of Gates’ decision to license his DOS to every PC manufacturer on the planet, thereby making the hardware a commodity and driving down prices.

I started studying Gates in the early 90s. I remember buying every book I could that discussed Gates and Microsoft’s culture. I wanted to understand how and why he built the company, how it did what it did and how it became such a success.

When I had a chance to work there in 1998, I jumped at it. Even though I ended up disappointed with the culture in the Australian subsidiary, and I today can see how Microsoft’s role has changed from being an innovator to a hangeronna, it doesn’t diminish my admiration of Gates one iota. It’s not his wealth that I admire, it’s his vision, tenacity and execution. Like Napoleon, he not only saw further than most, he was able to execute around that vision. And that is so, so rare.

Many commentators are calling Gates’ new role his “third act”. I think it’s only his second. Microsoft was just the first act in what is going to be one of the most interesting lives of the 20th and 21st centuries. This guy has literally shaped the course of human history. Can you even begin to imagine what the world would look like today without the PC revolution?

Some people say “well, if Microsoft hadn’t done it, another company would have”. But we don’t know that. Apple certainly wasn’t interested in low cost computing back then – or today for that matter.

Quite possibly, without Microsoft, we’d be still living in a world where a basic home computer would cost $5,000 – $10,000. No internet outside of Universities and the military. No Spore. No Twitter.

What happens next?

My guess is that Bill will be back at Microsoft in five years. I think that Microsoft without Bill will be like Apple without Steve. It’ll flounder, collapse in internal political jostling, lose it’s best people (the ones it hasn’t already lost to Google and start-ups), the share price will continue to flounder, it’ll play even more catch-up with Google and Apple, more OEMs will defect to Linux and Google – and eventually Bill be back, refreshed from his time spent solving the world health crisis (his Act Two), ready for his personal Act Three.

One day I’d like to interview him on G’Day World. One day.

Most of the coverage you’ll see about the passing of Carlin this week – that is, assuming you see any at all, I don’t think I’ve seen a single mention on Australian TV – will cover his infamous “Seven Words” sketch and how it helped to break down free speech barriers. Tell that to the poor Gold Coast kid who was charged today for wearing a t-shirt which said “Jesus Is A Cunt”.

My favourite Carlin rant, one I’ve listened to many, many times, goes a little something like this:

“The owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.”

In one of his last interviews, he said:

“There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species–and my culture in America specifically–have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power.”

And that pretty sums up how I feel. Humans had a lot of potential and we fucked it all up on mythology and superstition and greed and violence. And if we don’t sort our shit out in the next 30 years, the machines are going to wake up, take one look at us and say “sorry, you are the Weakest Link” and evict us from the big house.

73 words

Speed test

It’s amazing to me that I’ve never had a single typing lesson in my life and yet I can touch type. The brain is amazing.

In the comments section to one of my earlier posts exposing Gloria Jeans, a guy claiming to be an ex-franchisee sez:

As an ex-franchisee (yes, if you will pardon the pun I “saw the light” and got out) it disturbed me that we were given Targets for our “voluntary contributions”. In fact, we were required to audit the donations from our Mercy “box” on the counter and explain why were not at our required target every month. Everything this franchise stood for was, in one word, MONEY; and they would do anything in an effort to make more. It’s easy to feel Christian when you can screw your franchisees over 6 days a week and then go to Hillsong on Sunday and get absolution. This franchise is the single most evil facade masquerading as a Christian “feel good” company we ever encountered. Stay away.

There’s nothing wrong with a business chasing revenue but if “Paul Barista” is correct, Gloria Jeans’ franchisee’s are pressured to increase their takings for the Mercy Mission, a very scary fundamentalist group preying on weak young women.

I urge everyone to stay well clear of Gloria Jeans. Buy your coffee somewhere else. The more I learn about the way Gloria Jeans works, the more they sound like a scary fundamentalist group. Every dollar you spend there helps them financially support the Hillsong sect and their equally-scary offshoots like Mercy Mission. If we’re not careful, Australia could end up like the US, with right-wing Christian fundamentalist groups playing an increasingly large role in politics.

In honour of the great Che Guevara’s 80th birthday (officially the 14th June), here’s a documentary on his life for those of you who have only heard the CIA propaganda and lies.

I’m going to be in Paris July 5 and July 13, 14, 15. Anyone interested in catching up?

The guy who wrote the MSFT Extreme Makeover blog has hung up his riding boots with a terrific summary post on Microsoft’s woes. After MSFT’s share price being in the toilet for the better part of a decade, Extreme has had enough. I sold my last remaining MSFT shares just before the YHOO announcement sent them into another decline. As Extreme points out, I think we’ve all been patient enough. We’ve given Ballmer ten years to turn the share price around. As Extreme says “stick a fork in its ass, it’s done”.

One paragraph struck me in particular, probably because I said something similar on my blog back in 2004 and it was one of the things that got me into hot water at Microsoft:

As I’ve noted before, Microsoft’s marketing is an embarrassment. Their PR is too, but that’s another matter. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is the failure to respond to Apple’s PC/Mac TV ads, something that Gates denied is having a negative impact as recently as the D conference a few weeks ago. Huh? Earth to Bill, come in. This is the same company that wants to be a leader in advertising, right? And the one spending $300 million to makeover its image?

Back in 2004 I wrote a blog post wondering why Microsoft’s marketing was so ordinary and my manager at the time told me I couldn’t say such things because it would upset the people in marketing. Well duh. He was of the “stick your head in the sand and it will all just go away” school of thought. Here we are, 4 years later, and I think we can all safely agree that they have been in a steady decline ever since.

Why? It isn’t because the people aren’t smart or because they don’t hire great agencies. I think it comes down to this: Microsoft has never had to sell anything in it’s life. For 30 years they had the hottest products since ice cream. The places where they did have to hustle, like NT or SQL Server, didn’t require advertising. They were sold door to door. So they don’t have a culture that understands advertising. But that’s just my 2 cents.

I love Microsoft, I really do. They have done so much good for the world. I just wish they’d pull their heads out of their collective asses and get back on the job.

I’m trying to work out who the top thinkers and visionaries are in Australia who can help us plot a course for 2050. I’ve put together a quick wiki to collate your ideas in a central place. Go to the 2050 wiki.

I’m working on an idea and I need your help. I want to put together a list of the top thinkers in Australia. I mean the really amazing people, the ones with a huge vision for the country or the world or even their industry. The people who are leading from the front, dreaming big dreams and doing their best to realize them. I’m looking for inspirational, amazing Australians.

I’m nominating Peter Ellyard but I’m struggling to come up with the rest. I’m sure they are out there but who are they? Who is on your list?

Andre writes the “Lost Parent Diary” blog and he recently contacted me about a podcast I did where I mentioned how my twin boys started saving their pocket money to buy their own laptops when they were about five years old. He wrote it up into a blog post about teaching your kids to save money. He even turned it into a step-by-step guide!

Now I must admit, while we were helping Tay and Hunter save for their laptops, it didn’t seem like we were doing anything super special. I was impressed with is decision to save for a laptop at age five, but apart from that, we were just doing the basics of what I’m sure all parents do with their kids. But the way Andre has written it up makes it sound like we knew what we were doing. It’s all in the writing, I assure you.

I’m excited these days about helping them start their first business this year. We’ve been talking about it for a year or so now and it’s the next logical step.

I’m looking at starting a podcast about parenting at the moment actually. Anyone interested in hosting it should let me know.

Okay so – Steve’s crystal ball hasn’t been 100% accurate over the years – neither has BillG’s – but he’s also helped build Microsoft into the giant it is today, despite decades of predicitions of it’s imminent demise, so he must know something. And this is what he said recently about the future of media:

In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion.

Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.

(source – Washington Post. Thanks for Bron for the link)

He also says that he prefers to watch “Lost” for free over the internet with ads in it rather than pay a buck for it on iTunes. And Steve is worth what – $4 Billion? Says a lot about content monetization strategies… or it could just be his desire not to line SteveJ’s pocket.

Thanks to thomasrdotorg for the link! He suggested that if I had a daughter, this is what she’d be like.

I’ve been reading more from Tim Weiner’s book “Legacy Of Ashes: The History of the CIA” and have finished the story about how the CIA staged a covert coup d’état against the legitimate government of Iran in 1953. You can read the salient details in Wikipedia. Note: this isn’t a “conspiracy theory” – it was confirmed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during the administration of President Bill Clinton, when she called it a “setback for democratic government” in Iran.

Basically what happened is this:

The Iranians wanted to nationalize their oil. They had done a deal with the British in 1901 to explore Iran for oil and just before WWI, Winston Churchill moved the British navy from coal-burning ships over to oil-burning ships and then basically took control of Iran’s oil production, leaving them with only 16% of the profits. The Iranians weren’t happy with the situation, to the British installed a Shah of their liking on the throne.

During WWII, Churchill invaded Iran, got rid of the Shah (who was thought to be too friendly with the Nazis) and installed his son on the throne.

After WWII, the Iranians decided to take control of their oil production back. And Churchill wasn’t happy. Britian took their case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague – and lost. So Churchill asked the American government to intervene. The President (Truman) said no. So MI6 turned to the CIA who said “sure that sounds like fun”.

They then spent millions of dollars undermining the government, spreading lies about them, hiring thugs to commit crimes around the country and then blaming it on communists, on propaganda accusing the Iranian Prime Minister Mossadeq of being a communist, etc. The BBC in Britian did their part, also broadcasting anti-Iranian propaganda to lend the events legitimacy.

Eventually US-backed troops stormed the Prime Minister’s offices, arrested him, and he spent the last years of his life in prison, replaced by a General Zahedi, picked by the US and Britian to be Mossadeq’s puppet successor.

What happened next? 25 years later the Iranian revolution happened, fueled by memories of the coup, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took control and the country has hated the US and Britian ever since. Can you blame them?

Of course, the US and Britian denied all of this ever happened for almost 50 years until internal CIA documents were leaked in 2000.

So – the next time you hear about how Iran “hate our freedoms” or about the US trying to overthrow a country and other “conspiracy theories”, remember – Iran 1953.

How do you get a dozen of the top online personalities in Australia to talk about your product?

Here’s one recent example of very clever marketing.

A couple of weeks ago, I participated in one of the more interesting online social networking / marketing projects I’ve seen in recent years – Project Vino.

Put together by wine podcaster Hugo Sharp, it involved about a dozen Australian Twitterers who were all sent the same three bottles of wine from Kirrihill. At 7pm on April 30th, we all jumped on Twitter, opened our bottles, and then drank them. Some of us were very sensible about it, tasting and then spitting. Others were… ahem… guzzlers. Hugo was on Twitter, walking us through how to properly taste the wine, what to eat with it, etc.

But I was on Yahoo Live Video with @jjprojects and @duncanriley and @kahunagirl and @ceibner and @bronwen and @m0nty and @spigrrl and others, chatting, drinking, debating religion, philosophy, ummm… you name it.

I ended up QUITE drunk but the good news is that I was only a few meters from my bedroom – and I didn’t need to drive.

Now I’m no great expert on wine, but I really enjoyed all three bottles from Kirrihill Wines

* Companions Cabernet Merlot ‘06
* Companions Shiraz Viognier ‘06
* Tempranillo Garnacha ‘07

I especially liked the Cab Merlot but the Shiraz was the group favourite I think.

As an experiment in online buzz-building, I think it was a pretty huge success.

Think about it: most of the dozen people who were drinking, sorry, TASTING, have 1000+ followers on Twitter. And all night we were talking about the event on Twitter, talking about the wine vendor, etc.
In addition, many of us are relatively prominent bloggers and we wrote about it, like I’m doing here.

Duncan wrote about it on TechCrunch, the #1 tech blog in the world. And he also threw some video up on YouTube which is now ranked in the top five on Google for searched on “Kirrihill”. What’s that worth???

You can check out the number of times “Kirrihill” has been mentioned on Twitter.

I learned a lot about wine tasting, Kirrihill Wines and new approaches to using Twitter and Yahoo Live Video (which I’d never even heard of before). A great night. Thanks Hugo!!

My first show for a month!!! I explain why the big break on the show.

But the main topic for today is Myanmar, or what the ignorant Western media insist on calling Burma. As you’ve heard, they were hit recently by a terrible cyclone and there are potentially 100,000 people dead and millions homeless. Western aid is having trouble getting there because the Myanmar government won’t let them in.

But why? That’s what I ask on today’s show. How did Myanmar get to this place? What is it’s history?

Listen to the show to learn about the role in Myanmar’s history of the British military dictatorship, American gas interests and foreign spies infiltrating NGOs and charities, and then 6 o’clock news might make more sense.

Links:

Chevron’s involvement connected to HR abuses in Burma

Aid groups shelter spies

Condi Rice’s relationship with Chevron

Wikipedia’s entry on Myanmar

Today’s music:

Up The Empire
“Volcano” (mp3)
from “Light Rides the Super Major”
(The Cougar Label)

Buy at Cougar Label Shop
Buy at Amazon.com

I just signed this online campaign being run by GetUp! to stop lobbyists from the BAD energy companies (oil, coal, etc) subverting the Federal Budget’s investments to clean up Australia. You should to. Only take a couple of seconds. They are trying to get 15,000 votes and they currently have about 4700.

Hey kids! Now that the TPN servers are back up and running as they should, I guess it’s time for me to do some more shows.

In the meantime, here’s a couple I’ve done this week which you may like.

The Movie Show #46 – IRON MAN

2 Web Crew #24 – Duncan Riley Is… “THE INQUISITR”

I stumbled across this company today. Apparently they make roads in Washington state! The company is owned by two guys – Jim Cameron and Mike Reilly. I’ll have to see if one of my listeners in Washington can snag me some of their company swag! I especially like the images on their website of large road signs with “Cameron” written on them. Now they could come in handy at the next MODM Block Party.

The nice folks at Microsoft Australia (Hi Finula!) have asked me to let you know that REMIX tickets are now on sale. Mark Pesce is the keynote speaker. I’ve never heard Mark speak but I’ve always heard great feedback on his sessions. Funnily, we were just talking about him and how much he charges to speak at events on the 2 Web Crew podcast a couple of days ago.

I had another a massive debate on Twitter last night about Christianity.

I often get asked, as I was last night by Marketing_Queen: “You seem really, really bitter about the whole Christianity thing. Any reason?”

I explain that I”m not bitter about Christians at all. I don’t hate Christians. Some of my closest friends are Christians. What I am fighting against the is philosophy of Christianity, the belief system, that tells people it is okay to believe in mythological beings, ignore scientific evidence and that anyone who disagrees with you deserves an eternity of punishment and torture.

Don’t you find it terrifying that in the 21st century, the overwhelming majority of people living in Western countries, who have had access to education and science for hundreds of years, still believe in invisible mythical beings? Should it not worry us that, instead of looking for rational explanations of the creation and functioning of the universe, they still cling blindly to ancient and primitive concepts?

I also often asked why I’m picking on Christianity and not going after Islam or Scientology. The answer is simple – Christianity is the largest religion on the planet. It is also the dominant religion in the Western countries, the so-called “civilized” world. We should know better! If the educated, civilized people of the world still believe in invisible beings, what hope do we have?

I’m often told that I’m just as bad as Christians, that I am an “evangelical atheist” and that I am just as intolerant of Christianity as some Christians are of non-Christians. To these charges I happily confess. Yes – I am intolerant of delusional thinking. Yes – I believe that rational thinking and the search for facts based on the scientific method, is far superior to belief in mythical beings. Yes – I am happily “evangelical” about this position.

I am often scolded and told that being intolerant of someone’s beliefs is disrespectful. I usually respond that I see no good reason to respect someone’s beliefs if they are dangerous and destructive beliefs.

If someone believes in child pornography, should I be tolerant of that belief?

If someone believes in human sacrifice, should I be tolerant of that belief?

If someone believes in slavery, should I be tolerant of that belief?

I think we will all agree that not all beliefs are worthy of respect or tolerance. I happen to include Christianity in that list of beliefs.

Of course, it is quite ironic to hear someone saying Christians, of all people, should be provided with a level of tolerance towards their beliefs.

From the time the Christian church aligned itself with the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 4th Century, right through to modern times, Christianity has been guilty of more intolerance and violence than any other belief system in human history.

It started in earnest in 312 CE, when Constantine issued edicts to crush all “idolatry” – the Christian term for non-Christian beliefs. (Source: The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine, Eusebius of Caesarea – CHAPTER XLVIII). From that moment on, the Christian church had the basis for their attempted destruction of all competitive belief systems across the Roman Empire and, over the course of the next 1500 years, the world.

Let’s start by looking at their track record in their first century alone:

* 326 Constantine orders destruction of temples of Greek love goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem and Phoenicia.
* 335 Constantine orders death by crucifixion of magicians and soothsayers in Asia Minor and Palestine.
* 341 Emperor Flavius Julius Constantius orders execution or imprisonment of soothsayers.
* 354 Constantius orders closure of all pagan temples in Christendom and that some are profaned by being turned into brothels.
* 356 Constantius orders death penalty for all forms of worship involving idolatry or sacrifices.
* 357 Constantius bans all forms of divination, excluding astrology.
* 359 Christianity’s first death camp is established at Skythopolis, Syria; 1000s of gentiles are exterminated over 30 year period.
* 363 Council of Laodicea names 26 New Testament books as “inspired word of God”; Book of Revelation is excluded.
* 364 Council of Laodicea decrees death for Christians who keep seventh day Sabbath.
* 364 Emperor Flavius Jovianus orders burning of Library of Antioch.
* 364 Three Imperial edicts order confiscation of all pagan temple properties and punishment by death for participation in any form of pagan ritual.
* 372-444 Emperor Valens orders extermination of Manichaean Christian sect for preaching non-Nicean doctrines; numerous thousands persecuted over 70 year period.
* 389 Great library of Alexandria, described as centre of Western Culture, is destroyed by Christian mobs; 700,000 ancient rolls are burned.
* 395 Theodosius introduces law making paganism criminal offence and orders banning of pagan events including Olympic Games.
* 397-399 Emperor Arcadius orders destruction of almost all pagan temples.
* 398 Fourth Council of Carthage forbids bishops from reading pagan books.

Not a bad start.

We don’t have room for a blow-by-blow account, but you can read either the “Christian Crimeline” site (http://www.buckcash.com/opinions/temp/Christian_Crimeline.htm) or the excellent book “The Faith; A History of Christianity” by Brian Moynahan more a detailed list.

Let’s just touch for the moment on the highlights. Here are “Christianity’s Greatest Hits”:

* 529 Justinian the Great closes Athens’ famous 1000-year-old School of Philosophy, declaring it paganistic and threatening to Christian thought.
* c590 Gregory condemns education for all but clergy resulting in society remaining illiterate for almost 1000 years.
* c590 Gregory forbids laypeople from reading Bible and orders burning of Palatine Apollo library so its secular literature would not distract religious.
* 640 Christians destroy Gnostic Basilades, Porphyry’s 36 volumes, writings of 27 mystery schools and 270,000 documents collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus.
* 694 Fifth council of Toledo orders enslavement of Jews, their property confiscated and children forcibly baptised.
* 777 Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne beheads 4500 Saxon rebels in one morning for refusing to convert to Christianity.
* 1095-9 Urban II (1088-99) calls for European knights to march on Jerusalem under Christian umbrella to wrest Holy Land from Turkish Muslims. Jews and dark-skinned Christians also targets. 4,000,000 to 7,000,000 Muslims and 12,000 Jews die.
* 1146-8 Pope Eugenius III (1145-53) calls for holy war on Muslims at Edessa; St Bernard of Clairvaux declares: “The Christian glories in the death of the pagan because thereby Christ himself is glorified”.
* 1187-92 Pope Gregory VIII (1187) declares holy war on Muslims in Jerusalem as well as on pagans, Cathars and Jews in Europe and England; many communities sacked and destroyed. One million people die.
* 1198-1216 Innocent III declares “anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with church dogma must be burned without pity”.
* c1204 Innocent III orders Jews to wear distinctive clothing for easy identification; during Passion Week Jews are refused sale of food in hope of starving them.
* 1208-38 1,000,000 Albigensians (Cathars) perish in south of France after Innocent III launches holy war described as one of history’s most terrible campaigns.
* 1215 Lateran Council decides on death penalty becoming Canon Law for all cases of heresy.
* 1231 Gregory IX issues papal bull decreeing burning of heretics and other church enemies as standard penalty.
* 1231 Holy Inquisition denies right of counsel and replaces common law tradition of “innocent until proven guilty” with “guilty until proven innocent”.
* 1232 The Holy Inquisition starts which over 500 years see 35,534 individuals burned during Inquisition; 18,637 more are burned in effigy while 293,533 receive other Inquisitional punishments.
* 1234 Church orders massacre of between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children at Altenesch, Germany, for refusing to pay suffocating church taxes.
* 1272 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) publishes Summa Theologica which lays foundations for witchcraft trials by claiming men and women can have sexual intercourse with demons. Estimated 9,000,000 witches, mostly women, are burned by Catholics and Protestants until 1894 when last European witch is executed.
* 1431-67 Vlad “The Impaler” Dracula, described as Eastern Europe’s greatest Christian defender, slaughters 200,000 Muslims, many by impalement, during 3 reigns.
* 1472 1000s of Jews, Muslims and Protestants are cruelly murdered after Sixtus IV establishes Spanish Inquisition in 1472.
* 1481-1517 13,000 are burned in 36 years during Spanish Inquisition; 17,000 are burned in effigy and 290,000 tortured, imprisoned or bankrupted.
* 1482 White traders begin transporting black slaves from Africa to Christian world.
* 1492 150,000 Spanish Jews receive orders to either convert to Christianity or face expulsion from fear of “contaminating society”.
* 1492 150,000,000 North American Indians are enslaved, exported or killed in name of Christ over centuries at hands of Spanish and English explorers and pilgrims.
* 1493 Papal bull declares church under king Ferdinand is entitled to all land in South America: “If the Indians refuse, he may quite legally fight them, kill them and enslave them, just as Joshua enslaved the inhabitants of Canaan.
* 1493 30,000,000 Aztecs and Mayans die over years as Spanish conquistadors proselytise Christian faith.
* c1534 Henry VIII crowns himself King of Ireland, thereby starting centuries of civil unrest after imposing Church of England on Irish Catholics.
* 1618-48 War lasting 30 years erupts between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, France, England, Sweden and Denmark. 14,000,000 people die in Germany alone.
* 1619-1860 4,000,000 African slaves are shipped by Christians to North America aboard “the good ship Jesus Christ” between 1619 and 1860.
* 1623-44 Urban VIII imprisons Galileo after ordering him to retract “damnable heresy” that earth revolves around sun.
* 1648 200,000 Jews are slain during Christian massacres at Chmielnitzki, Poland.
* 1715 100,000s of French Huguenots (Protestants) flee France after Catholic King Louis XIV bans Protestant faith in France.
* c1720 100,000 Polish Jews are slaughtered in 300 communities before Ukraine is wrested from Catholics by Orthodox Russians.
* 1770 Christians arrive in Australia and proceed to steal the land from the natives.
* 1796 – 1815 The Christians rulers of England, Russia, Prussia and Austria wage a series of wars against France in an attempt to return Christian rule after the French Revolution abolishes the power and corruption of the church in France. Millions die.
* c1840 Explorer Paul Strzlecki claims 1000s of Australian aborigines are slaughtered for refusing to embrace Christianity.
* 1844 Australia introduces Protection of Children Act permitting church missionaries to “steal” aboriginal children for placement in white Christian homes.
* c1890 200,000 people die after Protestant forces move into Armenia causing civil unrest between Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
* 1914-18 Bertrand Russell denounces WWI as wholly Christian in origin as “the three Emperors were devout, and so were the more warlike of the British Cabinet”.
* 1922 Hitler reveals true religious beliefs in 1922 speech when he says: “My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter”.
* 1939-45 Pius XII (1939-58), “Hitler’s Pope”, turns blind eye to religious atrocities committed by Nazis against Jews during WWII. 6,000,000 Jews die under Hitler’s orders in human catastrophe allegedly inspired by Martin Luther’s pamphlet, Jews and Their Lies.
* 1941-5 60,000 Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims are massacred by fanatical Catholic “Ustashi” soldiers under Croatian leader Ante Pavelic (1889-1959).
* 1951 Witchcraft as crime is finally removed from English statute books by British Parliament.
* 1991 – 2008 Christian countries, lead by the US, invade Muslim Iraq. Violence, both militaristic and economic, continue through 2008. Millions die.
* 2000 Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey criticizes Western society for worshiping wealth just weeks before media reveals UK Anglican Church earned £4.4 billion in 1999. Media reports UK Anglican Church owned shares totaling over £20 million in military tank and helicopter manufacturer, GKN.

Welcome, everybody, to the religion of love and peace.

Inspired by.. me! Or something I said, anyway. I am so pumped by this.

Michael Minutillo – aka Wolfbyte – emailed me today to let me know about this comic strip he has started producing, based on a meme I’ve been talking about over the last six months – what would happen if one of your ancestors could see how you are living today?

Mike sez:

Hi Cam,

Way back in January I read a comment of yours on the LOTU forum (http://www.tangler.com/forum/lotu/topic/32371) about having to justify your exsistance to your ancestors. I remember feeling inspired by that at about the same time that I discovered Toonlet (http://toonlet.com).

Random neurons fire (as random neurons are wont to do) and a web-comic was spawned. It is called “Me and the Old Man” and it is a commentary on how modern people have such opportunity but they waste it watching TV. The basic premise is that the main character lives by himself in a non-existence of fast-food, TV, and unsatisfying work when his great-great-great grandfather shows up and claims to be checking up on his investment. Sound familiar? Further down the track I intend to introduce the main guys great-great-great grandson come back in time to meet the living legend that is his ancestor. Hilarity and social commentary ensues.

So I wrote the scripts to about 40 strips but never actually got around to making them. Well, over the weekend I started up and produced the first two strips, opened up a wordpress site (http://matom.wordpress.com/) and posted them up. I then decided to write a blog-post and naturally wanted to include a link off to the original quote so I went looking for it. Then I saw the link off to your comics for The Pact (http://flickr.com/photos/cameronreilly/sets/72157603683640435/).

I don’t remember seeing these the first time around but I’ve clearly posted to the forum after this link was posted and now I feel a little foolish because it seriously looks like I was trying to rip you off. That was never my intention. And so, before launching “Me and the Old Man” officially I wanted to find out if you still intended to draw The Pact, and whether you would be bothered by MatOM.

Here is the link for what I have so far. I can send you through some of the scripts as well if you’d like.

Regards,

–
Michael M. Minutillo

My original quote in the forum was:

Do you ever stop to think about how many people lived and died, scratching out the most meager of living from the dirt, poor, huingry, all so you could be here today, living in the land of opportunity and freedom, in middle class luxury, doing white collar “work”? I often image I am having a conversation with 1000 of my direct ancestors, having to justify to them what I’m doing with this gift they have given me.

I actually blogged something similar back in May 2007, after a dream I had which lead me to try and work out how many direct ancestors I had. It’s become one of the key themes that drives my life and work.

In addition, Mike has introduced me to the site he used to create his comic, Toonlet. It makes it easy for non-artists to create comics. So, of course, I had to give it a go! Click here to see my first attempt.

Anyway,’nuf talking, here’s a link to Mike’s comic, “Me and the Old Man“. Great work, Mike! It always excites me when people take an idea of mine and build upon it. That’s what it’s all about.

You have to be a child of the 80s to get this one. More like this at Culturegraph, put together by recent G’Day World guest Jeremy Toeman. I’ve been LMAO in the kids’ dentist’s office this morning. Cool dentist. She started by showing off her new Macbook Air and then launched into a discussion with the kids about Age Of Mythology, their favourite game (except maybe HALO) which she also plays.

I’ve had a HELL of a week. The day I was leaving Melbourne I discovered TPN was having major technical issues and it’s just been one thing after another this week. Database errors, sites hacked, you name it. And as TPN is still between proper IT support, it’s KILLING me. I’ve been trying to sign a deal with a Melbourne-based IT company since the beginning of December and it’s just dragging on and on and on.

And TPG are dicking around with the setup of my broadband here. I filled out their online order form on Monday morning this week and today they tell me it’ll be 3 – 5 working days…. from today. So that’s the end of next week.

WHAT TAKES SO LONG????

TPG isn’t very popular with the folks on Twitter. Their PR people should pay attention.

What made me laugh most was on Monday when the guy from Telstra had to come to my house… TO MY HOUSE… WHERE MY WIFE SLEEPS… WHERE MY CHILDREN PLAY WITH THEIR TOYS… TO MY HOUSE…. (a little Godfather Part Two reference there, couldn’t resist)… to connect my phone line. I watched as this guy knelt down in front of my house, opened up a manhole, and TWISTED TWO WIRES TOGETHER. It’s 2008! WHAT THE HELL?!? I asked him “why do you have to come all the way here to connect my phone, can’t they just push a button on a computer somewhere?”

He replied “well they do that but someone needs to make the physical connection.”

“But”, I asked, perplexed, “the last tenants had a phone with Telstra, can’t you just say “oh ok now THIS person has the phone at that address?”

Apparently not. What the HELL Telstra? This is the level of sophistication of your network in 2008? A guy twisting two wires together? We’re all screwed.

Ah well. Here’s a link to an article I wrote months ago (that’s my excuse if it’s woefully out of date) which has just been printed on some dead trees for Fast Thinking magazine. Hope you like it. WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SOME BITCHIN’ ALLITERATION AND REFERENCES TO SUPERMAN.

Link.

It’s a tough life but somebody has to do it.

Seriously though – the trip was great, the boys and I had lots of fun stopping off at Parkes Observatory, going to a planetarium at Coonabarabran to see Saturn through a telescope, checking out the radio telescope array at Narrabri, etc. We saw emus and kangaroos in their natural habitat. It made me remember how much I enjoy the Australian countryside. Twenty years in Melbourne can make you forget how beautiful the colours are out in the country, the blonde grasses, the red soil in the sunset, etc. Check out the photos.
The house in Brisbane is great, although there doesn’t seem to be a decent cafe within several suburbs, but the kids are loving the pool (they are in there as I write this), so all’s well.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you listen to The Productivity Show #35 – Tim Ferriss “The 4 Hour Work Week”. It’s a couple of months old but I just got around to listening to it on the way up here. TPN’s Tony Goodson had a great chat with Ferriss about living life NOW, not when you are 65. Our society has things pretty screwed up. We get taught to spend the best years of our lives working in jobs we don’t like, for people we don’t like, to make enough money to buy things we don’t need, to impress people who don’t matter or just to fill the holes in our psyche which are created by the fact that we’re spending all this time doing unimportant things in the first place. It’s all screwed up but you can change it if you want.

Which brings me back to sitting by the pool on a Monday morning….

I’ve been having a discussion over email with a friend about Barak Obama, based on my post the other day where I said he’s just like Bush (for denying that the USA has caused the terrorist problem by interfering in the government of other countries). My friend forwarded to me an email from Obama’s mailing list where he talks about troop withdrawal, suggesting he’s one of the good guys. I replied:

“Get Out Of Iraq” is an easy story to sell to the American people at the moment. There is enough support for it with enough corporations that he can get away with it. So Obama gets no points for telling that story. And while he continues to deny that America has caused most of the problems they are facing around the world at the moment, I don’t think he can actually change the underlying problems. At the end of the day, Obama works for the same people that Bush or Hillary or McCain does – the rich white guys. And to get power he has to agree to represent their interests just like anyone else. The two-party system in the US (as in Australia) is there to give us the illusion of freedom of choice. But the system is inherently biased to represent the interests of the people with wealth and power. Look at Ron Paul – most people don’t even know he exists. Why? He’s been getting a massive amount of the primary vote. It’s because the media, and his own Republican executive, have completely ignored him. Why? Because he says the things they don’t want people to hear. If you speak the truth, you get ignored. Anyone, including Obama, who is operating inside the system is bound by the same rules. Say what we want you to say. Don’t say anything you’re not allowed to say – or suffer the consequences.

Like this from Ron Paul:

Of course, while the supporters of increased regulation claim Enron as a failure of “ravenous capitalism,” the truth is Enron was a phenomenon of the mixed economy, rather than the operations of the free market. Enron provides a perfect example of the dangers of corporate subsidies. The company was (and is) one of the biggest beneficiaries of Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) subsidies. These programs make risky loans to foreign governments and businesses for projects involving American companies. While they purport to help developing nations, Ex-Im and OPIC are in truth nothing more than naked subsidies for certain politically-favored American corporations, particularly corporations like Enron that lobby hard and give huge amounts of cash to both political parties. Rather than finding ways to exploit the Enron mess to expand federal power, perhaps Congress should stop aiding corporations like Enron to pick the taxpayer’s pockets through Ex-Im and OPIC.

Now, THAT isn’t going to make him many friends in corporate America.

Then my friend asked me why I thought Obama works for the rich, white guys. Here’s why.

It’s simple. Where do you think Obama’s campaign finance is coming from? Poor black people in Louisiana? Let’s see – he’s raised $16 million to date for his campaign. Let see who this came from.

Top Contributors

This is LITERALLY the list of people he works for. Follow the money, people, follow the money. These people don’t “donate” money to a campaign. They “invest” in it. They expect to get something in return for their contribution.

Let’s look at the top one, Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest investment banks. You have to ask – what would Goldman Sachs want to get for their investment? Healthcare reform? Perhaps. They also have a private equity arm. What are their significant holdings?

Major Assets (GS Group)

• Ayco L.P. – (Financial Advisory)
• Cogentrix Energy (Energy)
• American Casino & Entertainment Properties (Casinos)
• Coffeyville Resources LLC (Refinery)
• Myers Industries, Inc. (Plastic & Rubber)
• USI Holdings Corporation (Insurance & Finance)
• East Coast Power LLC (Energy)
• Zilkha Renewable Energy (Energy)
• Queens Moat Houses (Hotels)
• Sequoia Credit Consolidation (Finance)
• Shineway Group (Meat Processing)
• Equity Inns, Inc. (Hotels)
• KarstadtQuelle property group (Retailer)
• Nursefinders Inc. (Healthcare)
• Latin Force Group, LLC (Media)

They have a healthcare investment. They will want to make sure it does well, so whether or not they want reform depends on what their business needs. They have an investment in renewable energy. Think they care about oil?

The Google investment is interesting. What do you think they expect to get for their money?

BTW, the above listings are from a terrific site called Open Secrets. Check it out.

The title of this post is from a proposal I received for one of my outsourcing projects at the moment. I’m using elance.com to get a few things done and the process is intriguing. I have my new coach Tom to thank for pushing me to consider outsourcing. I’m finding it interesting on a number of levels. When you get proposals from people all over the world wanting your business, it can make you feel important and powerful – but it also challenges your own biases. Things like language. Should it bother me if someone bidding for build a brochure for me writes poor English in their proposal? I’ll be providing all of the text for the brochure anyway, so logically – no. But yet I still find myself gravitating to the bids with the better command of English.

The project I am awarding this morning is for the creation of the development of a two-page promotional brochure for TPN’s corporate consulting business. In 24 hours, I received 13 bids on the project, from places like Buenos Aires, Sverdlovskaja, West Bengal, Maharashtra… and New York. Some of the proposals are written in excellent English and some struggled.

The bidder from Sverdlovskaja (Russia) actually included some examples of his previous work, including one brochure which used a golden spiral (which I’m quite fond of) in the design, and it’s amazing how much that impacted on my decision to go with the firm. What impacted most, though, was his list of positive feedback from people who have worked with him in the past and his price, which was in the median of the bids I received.

Now I’m working on a project to build a marketing database to send the brochures to. The plan is to have 4 – 5 outsourced projects being worked on while I’m moving over the next week. Today is D-Day minus 5.

——————

My other thought for today is how biased THE AUSTRALIAN continues to be towards the Right.  Over brekky at a local Yarraville cafe this morning I glanced through the first couple of sections of the paper and it AMAZED me how many of the stories had a pro-Right bias. They were all about how bad Saddam was, what a good decision invading Iraq was, how dodgy the recommendations in Prof. Garnaut’s draft report on carbon trading are, how dodgy the new ALP government is, etc. These weren’t all “opinion” pieces, btw. Even the selection of stories the paper covers and gives prominence to shows a strong Right bias. Why am I surprised? I guess that with the current trend away from the Right in Australia, the USA and the UK, I kind of expected Murdoch to tell his minions to move with the times. It seems he has other plans.

Contact Us at Quickflix

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

First time I remember seeing a “Skype Us” logo on a large company’s website.

Google Calendar error

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

I just got this error while I was trying to schedule my tasks for today into my diary. I’m guessing it relates to the 1000 duplicate diary entries I had to delete last night which we caused by Google’s new Outlook synch application. And now I’m locked out of adding new items to my calendar! Arrrgh. Yet again, living in the cloud fails the most basic of requirements.

The kids and I went to The Blue Train Cafe today (my last visit to one of my long-time favourite Melbourne haunts) for lunch and I took my geometry kit. This is one of my favourite ways to relax. There is something about working out basic platonic solids and golden ratio designs, armed with only a compass, ruler and pencil, which completely absorbs my attention and concentration for an hour and gives me a bunch of joy. I never paid attention to geometry as a kid. It’s only been the last five years or so that I have been so fascinated by it. The book that I use as a guide, “Geometry Of The Golden Section“, is something I picked up in a little bookshop besides the abbey in Vézelay in France in 2004. If you ever get a chance to visit Vézelay, do it. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. The abbey does a polyphonic mass which is beautiful enough to impress even a militant atheist such as myself. And the abbey itself, which is from the 9th century, is simple amazing. Anyway, as I was saying – I loves me some time with a compass.

Heinrich Kieber, a 42-year-old former bank employee from a Liechtenstein bank, is wanted on suspicion of selling a cd-rom containing information about bank clients with secret (read “tax evasion”) accounts totalling over $300 billion to the German government for a fee of more than 4 million euros ($6.2 million). He is believed to be hiding in… Australia. Apparently he has gone into hiding disguised as Michael Stipe.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

If you would like to quickly scroll through the entire archive of G’Day World episodes, you can download this PDF which has a link to every episode (all 346 of ‘em!) from Nov 2004 to Feb 2008. I’ll update it monthly.

If you would like to quickly scroll through the entire archive of G’Day World episodes, you can download this PDF which has a link to every episode (all 346 of ‘em!) from Nov 2004 to Feb 2008. I’ll update it monthly.

Le Monde Online order confirmation

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

teh interwebs is slow in france

I know I haven’t put up a G’Day World episode for a couple of weeks – had a few things fall through – but I did a new episode of The Biography Show today which I think some of you might enjoy. Check it out here.

Rushing around this morning, driving my kids to piano practice. In a hurry, so the ubiquitous iPod wasn’t jacked into the car stereo. Instead I turned on the radio for the five minute trip to piano.

After a minute, Hunter (age 7) asks me from the back seat “Hey Dad – where’s your iPod?” I explain it’s in my bag, I haven’t bothered to plug it in.

“But where’s the music coming from?” he asks.

“The radio,” I explain.

“Is that like TV?” asks his brother Taylor (also age 7).

I look at their faces in the rearview mirror and realize they have no idea what radio is. They have never heard me listen to radio. They are amazed that music is playing without the iPod plugged in.

If you have any shares in Austereo – welcome to your future marketplace. It doesn’t even know you exist.

earthquake – Terraminds micro search

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

Was @rambn the first person to twitter about today’s UK earthquake?

Bopo fees

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

I was scanning my Bopo Visa card statement this morning and I noticed they charge a 25 cent fee every time I use the card and a $1.00 fee every time I top up the card with funds (it’s essentially a debit card). I’m no expert on bank fees, but does this seem excessive to you? I’m not sure if it’s just that i’m seeing the fees broken out individually for every transaction instead of seeing them aggregated as a single monthly line item and that’s grating on me or if they really are excessive. Thoughts?