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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "cavilwatch" journal:
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09:34 am
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most depressing election. ever.
So on November 24th, we will get to choose either:
or
to lead us into the second decade of the 21st century. I feel ill.
Before the campaign gets truly heated, I think we should present the Glenn-Milne-Michelle-Grattan award for journalists who are obviously begging to crawl under the table and service their respective heroes. And the winners are... well, Glenn Milne and Michelle Grattan.
*sigh* nothing has changed in politics in twenty years, I'm thinking of locking myself in for the next 6 weeks with a few cases of wine and some iron(y) tablets.
Current Location: work
Current Mood:  apathetic
Tags: politics
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06:51 pm
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new member of the family
Hate to disappoint Messrs Costello and Rudd, but the latest family member aint a future tax payer. What's more as their favourite hobby is undoubtedly putting down small animals, we've committed a double crime by saving this little boy from the pound.
His name is Bobby (after Greyfriars Bobby), and is a Jack Russell/Corgi Cross. We're now a two-dog family. Yay.
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02:44 pm
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Another day in blah-burbia
Can't find anything that sparks my imagination today, so I'll do what bloggers normally do in such cases, and make something up.
Anyway, I was out taking our doggy for a walk at lunch and bumped into a guy I was at uni with, when I asked him what he was doing out our way, he said he was just walking around counting all the people who were intellectually inferior to him.
This perked my interest as I'd always thought of him as thick as pigshit.
I asked if he'd moved into sociology and was doing his thing as part of some sort of anthropological experiment. He snorted derisively at this and declared he had no truck with academics in their ivory towers. So then I suggested maybe he was working in some cutting edge industry and felt that this set him apart from the rest of the modern world. At this he shook his head and said he was proud to admit that the last generation of technical, medical and financial innovations had passed him by, and he really had no inclination to learn. Finally, running out of ideas, I wonder aloud if he was referring to charitable work, and he was contemptuous of those who refused to share their goodwill with others. He laughed at thus, and said that working in the video store took all his time and he couldn't be expecting to solve EVERYONE's problems.
"So", I asked, "how are you intellectually superior to everyone?"
"I just am", he replied, "I can see the world the way it really is and what needs to be done to fix it. If only everyone saw things my way, the world would be perfect."
"Ah." I nodded, finally getting it. "You're a member of the Australian Democrats."
"Of course I am," he replied, "who else would I choose?"
"So who did you vote for last election, given that your team weren't running a candidate?" I asked.
"Liberals!" he replied. "Have you any idea how much money Peter Costello will give me and Natasha to have another baby?"
"I thought your wife's name was Mary?" I wondered.
"Well, yeah it is, but we've got this system where we both get naked apart from a pair of Doc Martins - hey where are you going?"
Current Location: Work
Current Mood:  cheerful
Tags: ozpolitics
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01:29 pm
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Moore's Law and it's uses
I remember reading an article a few months ago where the author used Moore's Law to calculate that by 2025 the capacity of mobile phones will enable them to become "Life Recorders", where every user could elect to have their waking moments recorded on camera, then recoverable later if they forgot where they put their pen, what their boss was talking about earlier, or who they shared that drunken magical minute-and-a-half with in the spare room at Lesley's welcome-home party.
Or whatever.
I look forward to the epic legal battles that are fought over the admissibility a Life Recording in Court, the ethical dilemmas that a spouse may face when viewing the daily life of their other half or even simply an end to arguing over who puked on the couch at the above mentioned party, as it was all caught on video anyway.
In the mean time there's kiddies on trams using the latest technology to look up skirts.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/man-says-hes-filmed-women-on-trams-for-years/2007/01/17/1168709835081.html
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: busy
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03:00 pm
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Christianity, possibly the stabbiest religion ever invented? Stabby, stabby, stabby.
Spent my morning tea break reading about the nineteenth century pilgrims journey from Kyoto in the snow to Nagasaki, to where they were crucified then stabbed in the heart whilst singing "we love you" (hopefully at least one of the stabbers spoke English(*)).
Apparently their martyrdom inspired Christianity in Japan, which is very moving if you happen to believe in God and all that, but the question is begged, WTF is it about Christianity and having your skin pierced and bleeding? If it's not spears, it's thorns or a barbed leather jerkin or nails...
(*) am joking, OK?
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: busy
Tags: world
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02:48 pm
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Wouldn't it have been better to, you know, keep it a secret?
So GWB is going to give those ungrateful Iraqi's a good surging.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-pm-in-war-council/2007/01/10/1168105025710.html
I'm reminded of Verhoeven's much-maligned Starship Troopers satire, where the strategy for the mobile infantry was to "go out and shoot anything with more than two legs".
But this is real, real people will die and not only is he warning the enemy (whoever they may be) in advance, he's giving them logistical details into the bargain.
Stupid war, stupid occupation and even stupider penultimate solution. And he's advertising it. Boy, oh boy.
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: awake
Tags: world
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11:16 am
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Suggestion for the FBI...
If you're going to violate a few civil rights, at least get SF-techos onside by making the process cool.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1984496,00.html
My suggestion is when visitors go to the land of the free, they are greeted by a dalek who leads them to the finger print scanner screeching "inferior being".
Probably won't happen though. Boring.
Current Mood: busy
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09:12 am
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Post-modernism and cheap French booze
Being serious for a second I thought I'd start by saying what a great year 2006 was for me. Definitely, the highlight was a day in London in April, where my better half and I took a bus to the ancient town of Winchester for lunch, followed by driving to Bath for the afternoon, then in the evening we returned to London to watch my little sister perform at the Royal Academy of Music on Marylebone Rd, then went out for dinner at a cool restaurant in Soho. Other highlights of our holiday include visiting The Isle of Skye, Ironbridge Gorge and our last night back in London, where we dined at Antonio Carlucci's restaurant before staying at the Millenium Hotel (yep, the one where poor old Litvenko was polonium'd six months later).
Before our last night in London, we spent a week in Paris, where there was roughly one seven foot tall soldier for every tourist, and the cute little lane leading to our hotel was regularly barricaded - the hotel manager assured us that there was nothing to worry about, there was just student riots the week before and they wanted us to be safe. What perplexed me was why an anaemic, bookish uni student would be so stupid to attack the soldiers anyway. I mean, I'm 6'2" and one of those charming chaps with a machine gun could have broken me in half without taking the cigarette out of his mouth...
But I digress, three ever present features of 2006 are still here in 2007 and show no signs of going away. These are things so absurb, my brain usually melts and I can't be bothered arguing when they pop up. These things are (a) people who call themselves leftists but fall over themselves to justify everything the ALP does, (b) people who call themselves swinging voters but argue the Liberal's case at every opportunity, (c) centrists who hold a diverse collection of political views that, by amazing coincidence, will lead to the government putting more money in their pocket (Democrat Voters, basically).
So last night, I was thinking about the Paris riots and reading about the life of Foucalt, and it occurred to me there might be an explanation for the above three types of people that didn't involve assuming the world is full of morons. It's post-modernism.
Seriously, post-modernism was founded as a rejection of judeo-christian inspired certainties, and even more profound rejection of the irreligious dogma of fascism and communism. As these phenomena were heavily associated with capital (in one way or the other), the natural adherents to post-modernism were French students who rejected bourgious notions and preferred protesting in the streets to the financial past times of their parents... which was great until right at the end (1979, I think), Foucalt told them to read the works of Frederik von Hayek, the free marketeer and idol of Margaret Thatcher. According to him, a natural part of post-modernism is embracing free market ideals, free trade, free movement of capital and whatnot.
From the French Student's perspective, that's a bit of a fuckup, isn't it.
At least they had plenty of drinkable cheap booze to fuel them up to face the gendarmes.
So maybe that's why so many people have an erratic political compass, we're all going through our own personal post-modernist revelation and while we've had time to reject stuff, we're still exploring the natural conclusions of our ideals...
...or maybe Foucault was getting conservative in his old age and wanted to mess with his student's heads.
Whatever :) Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll swear a bit more next post, promise.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  bouncy
Tags: ozpolitics
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09:28 pm
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What I did at lunchtime
I work at home, which is great because I get to work with our doggy asleep at my feet (when he's not busy keeping me safe from that sneaky cat across the road). It's also good because if the mood takes me, I can nick out at lunch time to have an abortion. I tried that today.
Oh, I thought I knew what they were, you know, the termination of an unborn baby that is either ending the existence something that is alive, partially alive, potentially alive, or beautifully sentient to some ethical degree that no one can agree upon. I thought it was a contentious issue that is best avoided in blogging, but no, apparently it's the latest craze sweeping the nation, that the Australian Government needs to protect us from. Hell, if it's so popular maybe guys like me can do it too.
(...)
Went to the doctors but ended up not having one. Apparently abortion is that huge ethical dilemma that some woman face, after all. Not only that, it's also something that, if they do choose that path, they don't make the decision lightly at all. But according to our government women are too stupid to be aware of the gravity of the situation and need to be reminded by the Catholic Church. According to the opposition the government are almost right.
Boy, oh boy.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  aggravated
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10:54 am
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A cavilwatch exclusive - Ali G meets Kevin and Johnnie
Wow, only been here a few days and already I've received in the mail a copy of a debate between John Howard and Kevin Rudd hosted by Ali G. Wonder if it's real. (transcript follows)
Ali G: My first question is to Kevin Rudd.
Ali G: When you was Mayor of Liverpool, did you ever get to meet the Beatles?
Kevin R: Now, see, you've made three errors there, you've confused me with Mark Latham, secondly you've confused the English City of Liverpool with the Australian City, thirdly you've got the dates wrong by about twenty three and a half years.
Ali G (looks at notes) : Now a question for John Howard.
Ali G: If you is worried about catching disease from an African Migrant, why doesn't you use a connie?
John H: Let me just say, Alistair...
Kevin R: Can I interrupt and say you've made more errors there, most obviously you've confused John Howard with Pauline Hanson. On second thoughts you probably haven't, so I ask you, why do you know who he is but don't know who I am?
Ali G: Because John Howard is Da Man who wanted all Austrians completely mashed by the year 2000.
Kevin R: Now, see you've made more errors there as the phrase he used was "comfortable and relaxed", and it's not "Austrian", it's "Australian"... ohh, it doesn't matter, let him answer...
John H: Let me just say, Alistair...
Kevin R (interrupting) : Actually, no, that's another error, it's my turn to have a question. Pick me! I'm smart! I'm smart!
Ali G: Kevin Rudd, if you is elected president, does you promise to show everyone that trick where you become invisible?
Kevin R: Ah, more errors. Now you think I'm Simon Crean.
(...)
There's about 5 more pages, it's mostly Kevin Rudd talking (the word error gets used 87 times).
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: apathetic
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