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.

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.

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.

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’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!

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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

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.

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.

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.

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….

“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 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.