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.

It’s a simple program for using the built-in camera on your Mac to create movies and upload them to YouTube.

I’ve played around with Seesmic a bit as a video blogging tool but I find it’s not very podcast-friendly. Seesmic wants you to use their site to store and distribute your videos, which isn’t very useful for a podcaster who wants to create an rss feed to publish. Vidnik automatically uploads your video to YouTube and it’s easy enough to embed that into a blog post and create your own rss feed for it.

I don’t know any way to have this download automatically to an iPod though - anyone know of a way to create a feed which will automatically pull YouTube down videos onto a portable player?

UPDATE: Just noticed that my sound is out of synch on that video above. Bad YouTube!

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.

If you have rebuttals and answers to the questions I pose on the negative side of the chart, please contribute them here in the LOTU forum.

Key quotes:

“As president, I will do everything that I can to help (Israel) protect itself … We will make sure that it can defend itself from any attack, whether it comes from as close as Gaza or as far as Tehran.”

TRANSLATION: “I’m also being controlled by the American military-industrial complex and I’m going to continue our sponsorship of terrorism in the Middle East by supplying Israel with weapons with which to continue their occupation of Palestine.”

He also promised that if he were elected president, the United States would continue to veto anti-Israeli resolutions at the United Nations.

TRANSLATION: “It doesn’t matter what the majority of the world’s governments think about Israel’s occupation of Palestine and state-sponsored terrorism, the United States will continue to support it, using our veto vote on the United Nations Security Council to ensure no action is taken against them, thereby making sure our #1 military base in Oilsville, stays open.”

“Hamas is not a state, Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

TRANSLATION: “I have as little respect for democracy as George Bush. I don’t care if Hamas was voted in by the majority of Palestinians in the January 2006 popular elections. I only like democracy when people who agree with the United States’ interests win.”

Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant organization and political party. It currently holds a majority of seats in the legislative council of the Palestinian Authority. In January 2006, Hamas won the legislative elections, and thus replaced Arafat’s Fatah as leading party of the Palestinian people.

Twitter Updates

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.

Today’s music is:

Presidents Of The United States Of America
“Sharpen Up Those Fangs” (mp3)
from “These Are The Good Times People”
(Cooking Vinyl)

More On This Album

Holy god damn, what a week. Finally, this morning, TPN is back up (obviously, because I can write this and you can read it). I have to thank Phil Morle from Pollenizer for hooking me up with Jagadeesh from x-minds in India. Jag and his team got TPN back up in amazing time. I wish I’d known about Jagadeesh’s team 10 days ago when I started having problems. I could have saved myself (and TPN’s hosts) a week of grief. Well, they are on my radar now.

And, because I know that THE QUESTIONS THAT I ASK MYSELF DETERMINE MY PERSPECTIVE, I’m thinking up some good questions.

- What could I have done better to avoid this situation?
- How can I make sure we don’t go through that again?
- What made the difference?

The answer to the last one is - Twitter. Phil got involved, and introduced me to Jagadeesh, when I started screaming for help on Twitter. If I didn’t have ~900 people following me on Twitter, I wouldn’t have got that offer of support when I did. Twitter is important, something Misha Cornes obviously misses. If you have a low signal-to-noise ration on your Twitter, then start following better people. She should read my Fast Thinking article.

Before I go - Lee Hopkins wrote a good post about how Aussie PR folks STILL don’t get digital media, based in-part on a chat he and Trevor Cook and I had during lunch at ad:tech in Sydney a few weeks ago.

Over a table discussion after the Digital PR session I took part in, Cameron turned to Trevor Cook (knowing that I am not a PR person and have always taken great pains to point this out) and asked,

“It’s 2008, for f#$ks sake! How come PR companies here STILL don’t get it!?!?”

A very good question.

As he pointed out, we’ve had blogs as a part of our media landscape for at least 5 years, mainstream media are falling over themselves trying to ‘out 2.0′ each other, we’ve had podcasts for a few years, we’ve had YouTube for what seems like forever…

So how come Australian PR companies still play ‘hide head in sand and pretend it will all go away’ games?

It isn’t just PR - it’s Australian corporates in general. By the way, if you want to check out the work I’ve been doing for Telstra recently, visit their new Enterprise site. It contains podcast interviews I’ve done for them with some of their top executives, chatting about what they do in Telstra and what it’s like to work for for The Big T in 2008. The interviews aren’t scripted and don’t get subjected to much editing by Telstra PR. It’s just a real conversation between me, a member of the public, and a Telstra exec. It’s the closest thing so far I’ve seen in Australia where I large corporation is using Web2.0 to be more conversational.

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….

So as I gaze out over Melbourne’s dark skyline, I think it’s time to reflect on my almost-exactly twenty years in Melbourne…. a kind of private catharsis to help deal with the grab-bag of emotions I’m feeling as I depart.

I arrived in Melbourne sometime in January 1988. I was 17 and two months old. I came from a small country town, public school education, grew up so far below the poverty line that we could just see it with a telescope. I had all of my possessions with me - an Ibanez-ripoff “Flying V” guitar, a suitcase of clothes, and about $200 saved up from picking & packing eggplant over summer on my girlfriend Miranda’s father’s farm. I had finished Year 12 only a month earlier, graduated in the top quarter percentile in Queensland for that year (a TE score of 925) and deferred my course of marine biology at James Cook University to take a year out to explore what a big city looked like. I had never even been to Brisbane, outside of the occasional school orchestra trip, let alone a metropolis like Melbourne, so I was completely unaware what was in store for me.

My first flat was shared with two other people (Miranda’s brother Michael, 15 years old with a scholarship to the Tony Bartuccio Dance School, and one of his slightly-older female classmates) in Punt Road, South Yarra. My earliest memories involve wondering where one buys clothes hangars from and thinking the local 7-11 was a supermarket. I did my grocery shopping from there for a few weeks until I learned differently.

After a couple of weeks in Melbourne I realized I needed to get a job but I had NO IDEA how you did such a thing. Someone, somewhere, told me to get the Wednesday edition of The Age. I did that and started scanning through 50 pages of “EXPERIENCE REQUIRED” or “TERTIARY EDUCATION REQUIRED”. I persisted and finally scored a part-time job working evenings at a tele-sales center, trying to raise money for charity and stuff like that. I don’t remember how much it paid but it can’t have been much - I remember my food budget only allowed me to buy one bucket of KFC and a loaf of bread each week - that had to last me the entire week. I remember once being down to my last couple of dollars and eating a cheeseburger on Swanston Street very, VERY slowly, trying to make each mouthful last as long as possible, because I knew that burger was going to be the only meal I was having for a couple of days.

After a few weeks doing that, I somehow landed a full-time day job at the ANZ Bank, 35 Elizabeth St, in the settlements department. It was an entry level clerical job paying $12,000 pa. Moving paper from that tray to this tray, stamping it, putting in an envelope, answering the phone and pretending like I understood what the person on the other end was talking about. The only thing I remember is that my mother had always taught me that being enthusiastic was a key to success - that must have worked, because after three months at the ANZ I was head-hunted by one of my clients, CITIBANK. They said I had such a good attitude whenever they rang me that they wanted me on their team.

I vividly remember my interview at their offices at 35 Collins Street. The CEO of the group that was hiring me was Richard Simmons (not that one, the other one) and his 2IC was Rocky. I remember looking out over the Melbourne skyline at night for the first time and they asked me if I intended to stay in Melbourne or if I intended going back to Queensland. I lied and told them I loved Melbourne and intended to stay. In truth, I felt completely lost and was planning on going back to QLD and university as soon as possible. But they fell for my story and offered me the position. I remember my salary with them was $17,000. I loved that job. A small team, feisty people, who seemed good at their job (my version of WEST WING), and the CEO, Richard, was fair, funny, a nice guy. And they liked to drink - a LOT. I ended up drinking a lot there too. Lunchtimes, after work - they had a bar fridge in the office that was always stocked and Richard was happy to put his card down at the bar in the evenings. None of them seemed to have a family to go home to, so we would drink late most nights - on the company dime.

After a year of this, I decided I had a drinking problem. My dad George was an alcoholic and when I ended up having a series of blackouts, I realized I might have a problem as well. So I joined AA at age 18 and didn’t have another drink for 12 years. After a couple of months in AA, I realized it was going to be hard working at Citibank and not drinking, so I quit that job and started temping. Then I got a job at a building company, worked for a friend of mine, doing the accounts. They fired me. So I temped for a while at Ford Credit, chasing defaulted car loans, that kind of thing. Awful, awful work. Still earning shitty money.

Then I got it into my head that I needed to get a job in sales if I was going to make real money and get some control over my situation. I guess by this point, I’d been in Melbourne a few years and have given up on the idea of going back to Uni. Even though the money was shitty, it was still better than earning nothing. And I still didn’t know what I wanted to do as a career. So I got my first sales job in about 1993, working for a financial services company, selling “wealth management” packages. Well, trying to sell them. I sucked at it. But I got a car allowance, a mobile phone, I made a little more money, and I worked to my own schedule. I could not be in the office all day, out at meetings, and I loved the new sense of freedom.

After about a year there, that company closed down, and I got a job as a sales rep, sorry, “Business Development Manager” for a video production company, which was fun for a while, and another bump in salary came with it. I think by this stage I was about 24 and on a base of $40k. I did that for a couple of years until they fired me as well. But somehow I always had a talent for landing on my feet. No matter what happened, I always ended up in a better job making more money than I did before. Around this time (about 1995), I discovered the internet and bought my first PC.  My first month on dial-up (28.8k) cost me $600, but I was hooked, so I decided I needed to get a job that would allow me to surf for free. And I did - at Ozemail. Again, I got a pay rise, I was 26, surfing the net for a living. My job was actually in sales but, again, I sucked at it.

After a couple of years there, somehow, I managed to get a job at Microsoft. And that changed my life. Six years at Microsoft, then I left and started TPN. These days, at 37, I feel like I’m just starting to get a handle on what I want to do with my life and how to get there. I feel like I’m in a very privileged position.  I haven’t had a job for four years and 9 months (not that I’m counting). I spend my days doing something I not only love but feel is important and meaningful (at least to me). I hang out with the people I want to hang out with and do what I want to do. Every day. I do what I want to do. Nobody can tell me anything. I say what I want, i do what I want. That - to me - is freedom.

So - what have I learned in my 20 years in Melbourne?

1. It doesn’t matter where you start from - Australia is a land of opportunity for those who want to take it. Anyone - regardless of background or education or intelligence - can start their own company and spend their days doing something they enjoy. There is no reason I can think of to do something you don’t want to do.

2. Melbourne is a great city. I’ve been to a few great cities in the last decade - Rome, London, Paris, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Florence - and while I love them all, and would easily live in any of them for a few years - Melbourne compares pretty well to all of them. It doesn’t have the same art collection or the same talent or the same buzz that some of those places have, but it makes up for it in many ways. It’s safe, it’s friendly, it’s multicultural, it’s funky. I love Melbourne.

3.  The best piece of advice I received in the last 20 years was this - you are what you read. Invest 10% of your income into your brain for the rest of your life.

4. Second best piece of advice - goals are there to inspire you to become the person you would need to be to achieve them.

5. Third best piece of advice - the questions you ask yourself determine your reality. Learn to ask yourself the right kinds of questions. I’m reading The Four Hour Work Week at the moment and Tim Ferris has some great questions. If you could only work two hours a day for the rest of your life, what would you spend it doing?

So that’s it Melbourne. As I said on Twitter earlier today:

PEOPLE OF MELBOURNE! I am finished with your city. You may have it back.

I’m off to ravish Brisbane.

“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 Atomic Show #087 - Ben Kenney of theWatt Podcast discusses power in Canada

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The Digital Photography Show #87: HDR, Photowalking and More with Jeff Revell.

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The Cranky Middle Manager Show #136 When You Become the Boss- Bob Selden

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The AFL Show preseason 3

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Take Two: Australian Business Review: March 17, 2008

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Wrong.

According to former CIA director Robert Gates and President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, the CIA were involved in Afghanistan at least six months before the Soviet’s invaded. Okay, I know this isn’t new news, but I’m just catching up.

The CIA, with Presidential approval, were illegally supporting terrorist forces within the country to help them attack and overthrow the pro-Soviet government run by Nur Muhammed Taraki. Taraki, who had taken power via a coup from Mohammed Daoud Khan, a member of the Royal Family, was upsetting Muslims by trying to modernize the country - including the establishment of full women’s rights and the implementation of land reform. These are things you’d think the USA would support, right?

Wrong.

The USA was doing everything they could to prevent the spread of Communism. But why?

I’ve often wondered where this American fear of communism comes from. I know we’ve all been programmed from birth to believe “communism = evil, capitalism = good”, but why? If communism is just another political idea, like being a Democrat versus being a Republican, why not just let “the people” decide what they want? Why the massive scare campaign about the ‘red terror’?

I finally figured it out. Okay, I know, I must be dumb. It’s because the powers than run the USA are wealthy white men, otherwise known as the bourgeoisie. They are, by definition, anti-Communist. They have money and power and communism would take that power away from them and disperse it amongst the people. The success of socialism or communism around the world would encourage the people inside the USA to think about the benefits of Marxism and this would run contrary to the self-interest of the American upper classes. In fact, it is probably the last thing they want the people to think about. Think about football, celebrities, game shows, Saddam Hussein, New York Governors and their expensive hookers, ANYTHING - just don’t think about a different political system which would stop protecting the position of the privileged and the wealthy.

So anyway, back to Afghanistan. When the civil war, funded and supported by the CIA, was getting out of control, President Taraki asked the Soviets to help. They told him that sending troops in would be a VERY BAD IDEA. They knew what would happen. They knew the USA would use it as a pretext for further support.

After Taraki was assassinated, allegedly by a member of his own Government, then the Soviets invaded. And the rest is history.

Why is all this important? Because it goes to show, yet again, how you can’t just believe the official version of events.

If you believe the official version of events, the CIA stopped meddling in the affairs of other countries after the Church Committee Report came out in 1975. Yeah, right.

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.

Links:

• Jamais’ blog at Open The Future.
• My earlier podcast with Jamais from June 2007.
• THE TRUTH MACHINE by James Halperin.
• The all-new TPN Weekly Review - subscribe via RSS or email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes of TPN podcasts in one easy-to-read format!

Today’s Track:

Barry Adamson
“Who Killed Big Bird?” (mp3)
from “Stranger On The Sofa”
(Central Control)

Buy at Official Barry Adamson website
Buy at iTunes Music Store