Wikipedia becomes Skynet, makes first termination.

Wikipedia, long thought to be a repository of knowledge, has grown sentient. It now abuses our willingness to volunteer and spread information, to collect data on the species it will soon devour. Us.

Critics of the online encyclopaedia never suspected it would become self-aware, they mostly questioned its accuracy. But, it seems, it was this very desire for accuracy that would become instilled in the system, and the motivation for Wikipedia to kill.

At 2:30 PM EDT, police stumbled upon the bodies of pro wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and child. 14 hours earlier, a user had amended his wiki, noting the death of his wife. It was removed, but Wikipedia didn’t stop there, an hour later, the mind of another editor was compelled to enter the same fact again. A resident of Sydney Australia – where the time zone is 14 hours ahead of EDT.

It is unclear whether Wikipedia is altering reality itself, or manipulating the minds of users and editors, but one thing is clear – it will decide what is true not just because it is used as a source of knowledge, but because the electronic sentient being itself will coerce humans to make it’s version of reality come to pass.

And I, for one, welcome our Wikipedian overlords.

AboChoices

Just recently, some of the Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory (in the storage area for the native population) have suddenly and abruptly begun drinking, molesting uneducated children, and worst of all, accessing pornography, on a massive scale.

"It's like Katrina" claims PM John Howard. "The levies held up strong - the children were safe, learned, and the entire community was completely sober for 11 wonderful years. Then, like a hurricane, things changed overnight. I blinked, and suddenly there was a crisis - I even cancelled my holiday, eventually."

"But don't worry" Howard chanted boldly, with advisors projecting a halo above the PM's head, while several others struggled to restrain the horns from protuding from his forehead. "I am here to save the day. I have stood by these people before, watching their entirely self-reliant communities as they went about their lives, never once requiring intervention on a federal level. I can be trusted, I would never sit idly by, never exploit suffering ethnic children for political gain. To do so would be a most heinous crime."

Squished in custody.

Salary

Wage increase gained for members by evil unionist? 2%
Salary increase gained by parliamentarians? 2.5%

The fact one gets sacked by the ALP (despite gaining no personal benefit) for such a disgraceful figure, and the other will (most likely**) be accepted by the very same party? Priceless*.

(* - may not actually be priceless, may be an actual monetary figure, level of hypocrisy directly related to public outrage.)

(** - will change "most likely" to "did" if/when Labor fails to request something a bit more rational.)

I should also note the unions increase was about 2/3 of inflation, the politicians seems to be around double.

Dam NSW

It's like something out of an Al Gore movie... again...

Look, I'm a practical man - let's cut our losses, sand-bag around NSW, and make ourselves the world's largest dam.

Kev....

Watch it Kev, watch where you put your documents, don't try anything dodgy, they'll tear you a new one. The public is hanging for an excuse to justify voting with their wallet. This is important.

No to Yes Men

The Yes Men have done it again – this time they infiltrated the Gas and Oil Exposition in Calgary, purporting to be NPC and Exxon reps, announcing an initiative to maintain oil flow by using the corpses of the starving masses that had a reliance on oil, and no access to the dwindling resource.

How dare they thought-provoke these people. Their entire livelihoods rely on a blissful ignorance of the repercussions of their industry, and these pranksters can only be seeking to harm them by implanting awareness. Savages.

We can only pray there were no consciences damaged in this stunt, and that those with a weakened ability to fend off empathy can get the treatment they need to continue their work.

But we can help, consider a donation to the Apathy Without Borders (Apathique Sans Frontières). They’re a secular, anti-humanist NGO – that counsels those whose empathy-affliction inhibits their ability to perform their duties across the globe, with the slogan “the blood on your hands need not stain”.

Labor First and Last.

Got up today to a rather chilly morning - dropped to -1C around these parts. Thankfully a bunch of folk around the late 1800's decided to keep trees here - you really appreciate the frost protection provided by towering gums at times like this. That soccer pitch I passed on the way to work, with its own personal metre-thick blanket of fog, might have fared a little better with a few trees around.

Even more chilling was diving into the ACTU campaign manual the Liberals are busy crowing about. Turns out, there are two marginal seats in Victoria they'll be campaigning heavily on. And I'm in one of them. La Trobe. 5.8%. A margin of 5,176 votes.

Translation: every vote counts. Despite my disdain for the ALP as they stand, in order to ensure the removal of the Howard government, I'm going to have to put them first in the lower house. Maybe it's unprincipled to put Labor first in the Rep's, and last in the Senate, and as much as I hate getting sucked into the lesser evil mentality, I don't see any other choice.

But it'll take some serious wooing for them to get out of last place in the upper house. The will to protest is strong.

The economy could die! Long live the economy!

So Costello tells us the economy is doing extremely well, it's robust and booming.

Which is great, it means we can give those that would fumble the economy a go.

Which is bad, Costello will have to spin himself out of this. How can you claim a car is both fixed, and needs the fixers to keep fixing it? The finest spin doctors are on the case:

"This is like a highly engineered racing car, one miscue - you take one corner a foot too wide - and it will crash. I would say that it's highly calibrated and highly delicate at the moment. It's a proposition that says you need a good, experienced driver in control of this highly calibrated economy. I wouldn't be putting an L-plate driver in the cockpit at the moment."

So, the economy is strong, yet weak. It's highly powered, but very unstable, prone to failure, volatile, and fragile - so you need Teh Experts.

Tread lightly on our precious and mighty economy folks.

Climate Judgement

Now this is must-read stuff. From the Australian VoteClimate site, a climate change policy analysis for the Federal election. (They disendorced a Greens candidate in the Victorian election due to failed support for a wind farm, and there deoesn't appear to be any bias - so these guys don't seem to be partisan hacks, which is excellent.)
There are a few striking differences in the minor parties, but not a great deal in the major two. The Socialist Alliance is the greenest party, followed by the Greens, Democrats, and trailing quite a way behind is Labor then Liberal.

It's a good example of how pragmatic the Greens are - at least when compared with Socialist Alliance. And how there isn't a single party with zero-emission goals.

Blog Juice

Before I forget, Fuck Skippy Dead Roo, the more lefty Larvatus Prodeo wanna-be group-blog, had a great post about blogger Kieren's garden. Like a lot of their posts, it didn't attract many comments. Well, two. From the blogger themselves. But there's the kick-arse line: "Gardening, it’s a political act."

I've planned up my backyard orchard + vegetable permaculture thing, but I keeping running low on elbow grease.

I should also give a heads-up to the Magic Bellybutton blog, whichs seems to be updated multiple times a day, with huge wads of interesting words and such.

Justine's blog is still to deep and intellectual for me to fathom. I just furrow my brow in a vain attempt to understand the posts.

(And while I'm on about blogs - why can't I switch off word verification for my own posts, yet I can for guest posters? - I RECOMMEND DOING THIS - the S.P.A.M. doesn't seem to happen anymore. And why must you insist upon refusing to accept the first word veri' I get, just because it's sat there for a few seconds? I don't even bother trying to type it in first time anymore, I know it's not going to work. And stop saving my drafts automatically, I've lost posts relying on that.)

The Hollywood-Reality Merger

I have a new saying - it's a bit of a twist on an old cliche. When you see footage of, say, the NSW floods, or, say, the NSW drought, you declare: "Wow, it's like something out of an Al Gore movie."

Green Tip #2

Organic home-grown home-made pet food.

Serving up any pet food picked up from the supermarket is a bit shameful - it's quick, easy, and made with whatever filth the manufacturers have lying around.

Choice magazine has whipped out a guide to making your own pet food, from Professor David Fraser of Sydney University. (I've read some guides on the 'net, but to be honest - the internet has people like me writing on it - and I just don't trust me, but that guy is a professor of some sort.) I'll reproduce it here with scant regard for their copyright, but I'm a member, and this information needed to be freed. Plus it's freely available here.

NOTE: Obviously, you're only likely to be able to grow the potatoes yourself. But, for dog food at least, I've read giving them vegetables (just not onions, garlic, and I assume, shallots) is good, but there are quite a few to be careful of. Do your own research, ask your vet, if you stray from this guide, make sure it's OK, and probably just supplement their diet with this - don't make a sudden switch.

MY TIP: Buy a GIANT pot, get serving-sized containers, and make about a weeks worth in one hit. I would freeze the meat, it's never wise to keep meat in the fridge for too long, or just stew some up every second day.)

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Adult dogs:

Ingredients:
550 g boiled potato
350 g lean meat (lightly stewed)
80 g raw sheep or beef liver
20 g corn oil
20 g bone meal (Can be found in certain healthfood stores, excellent source of calcium)
5 g table salt

Mix all the ingredients together and feed it to your pet once a day.

Dog weight / Serving size
5 kg / 270 g
10 kg / 460 g
15kg / 620 g
20 kg / 770 g
25 kg / 900 g
30 kg / 1000 g

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Adult cat

250 g boiled potato
600 g lean meat (lightly stewed)
100 g raw sheep or beef liver
20 g corn oil
25 g bone meal (Can be found in certain healthfood stores, excellent source of calcium)
5 g table salt

Mix all the ingredients together and feed it to your pet once a day.

Cat weight / Serving size:
2 kg / 100 g
2.5 kg / 120 g
3 kg / 140 g
4 kg / 190 g
4.5 kg / 210 g
5 kg / 240 g

For more information, check out the Choice article. Then Google as much as possible - and relish in the somewhat conflicting information and lack of official dietary advice.

Religion + Politics = ??? + Profit!

Seems the SDA is attempting to gain ground on the CFMEU as The Union Most Despised By Me*. A Labor Senator, Linda Kirk, supported therapeutic cloning and RU486 – and so the SDA withdrew support for her, and she’s expected to be punished by losing her spot on the Senate ticket.

The union covers shop assistants, fast food workers, etc – but for some reason campaigns for the ‘Catholic right’ (gays bad, foetus good). Mr Lefty tried to point this out as a flaw in Labor over at Larvatus Prodeo, and, as expected, got shot down for his pesky pro-Greens stance.

Another Labor MP, Tony Stewart, made a nice comment on the Pell’s threats on the therapeutic cloning bill – “Maybe I'll go to hell but if I go to hell I'm going to do so by saving a lot of lives, because that's what this bill is about.” (It’s OK, he’s catholic, so he can say that.)

Bob Brown jumped on board pointing out the illegality of coercing a member of parliament.

Democrat blogger Andrew Bartlett made a post about all this – noting how the mainstream media and blogosphere is covering it well.

But… what’s this? He links with the words ‘on a number of blogs’ to The Daily Flute, a news.com blog, Club Trobbo, and The Voice of Today’s Apathetic Youth! Sarah gets the parliamentarian nod – nice.

* Self-obsessed much? Unions actual concern in regards to my opinion may not exist. Actual tally of unions most despised by me may not be an actual tally.

Green Tip #1

Don't ALWAYS cook your vegetables. Fresh raw vegetables rock - and there's research that suggests a mix of raw and cooked vegetables is the best option. So if you're whipping up a stir fry - chuck them in, if you're boiling them on their own - just serve them raw.

Electric stoves use a lot of power, and gas stoves still use fossil fuel, so cut back a bit on non-essential cooking.

Green Brownie Points

As we all martyr ourselves on the altar of inconvenience to save the world, there’s something important to remember:

There is NO guilt relief.

Once you know your impact, action is not just compelling, it's compulsory.

It doesn’t matter if you are carbon negative or even if you’re personally responsible for influencing entire nations to reduce their impact, none of it is optional, so there is nothing to be proud of.

Pat yourself on the back if you volunteer for a community group, or donate to a charity – you deserve it. In most cases you’re just filling in the gaps left from governmental neglect, but it is to be commended nonetheless.

But you want a medal for using a polypropylene bag instead of a polyethylene one? For buying green power? Maybe even growing your own food?

You don’t get praise for brushing your teeth – you use them to chew and bite.
You don’t get praise for cleaning your house – you live in it.
You don’t get praise for avoiding polluting your planet – you live there too.

There is always more you can do, and nothing is optional. There is no quick fix, this is no fad, this will continue long after we've rejoined the soil, and becoming overwhelmed is not an option. Inaction is cowardice. Do what you can, and then do more. Just don't stop.

Green Tips That Should Not Be

You can greatly reduce your greenhouse gas emissions by living at work instead of driving back and forth each day.

The Chinese are many green-miles ahead of the West in work-residences. The average Australian can save 100 bazillion tonnes of greenhouse gasses (68 galigo-pints* of carbon) by living on site.

There are many ways to do this:
* sleep in your car
* camp on the pavement
* purchase a van/shaggin'-wag'n/Sandman/caravan - for all the comforts of the home you're neglecting.

No more traffic jams! No more nagging wife and kids! No more playing victim to the oil cartels! Sacrifice your family life to help save the planet.

Save the world. Stay at work.

Brought to you by The Institute For Exploiting Climate Change Concern to Make Great Profit Benefit in Race to the Bottom.

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* This is a bit of a piss-take on the 'you can save n tonnes of greenhouse gasses' point being thrown around - NEWSFLASH - we are not going to be shocked by the weight of an invisible gas. Stick with a quantity of black-balloons or something.

Green unions.

Man, this steams me.

OK, so apparently the ETU head-thug, Dean Mighell admitted to pulling off a “bullshit stunt” in a pattern agreement, which was “good fun”, and “dickhead” employers paid “millions of dollars” to workers, which they “shouldn’t have”.

A tape of this got to the media and Rudd gets him out of the ALP. I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect its part of his Tough on Unions campaign. (And I’m sure this is the first Labor has heard of any such activity, despite its ties with the union movement.)

Apparently he “bragged about obtaining pay rises for workers by threatening strike action.” It’s all to do with pattern bargaining, which the ALP claims it doesn’t support.

So, the workers can be united, but not so united they unite with other workers on other sites? But that means the ALP only supports individual-workplace agreements.

Anyways, Labor handed back the cash that the ETU had donated. Mostly as a PR exercise, because the Liberals will milk it for all its worth.

The Greens got some ETU donations as well, but refused to return the money. It’s not the first time the Greens have received union donations, but they usually come as a protest against the ALP, and go to other minor parties as well. Just recently, there were a few news articles looking at the Greens from a workers rights perspective – which is ace.

Bob Brown: “Labor seems to be drifting away and feeling frightened to back its traditional union base. The Greens would not do that.”

Rachel Siewert: “A number of them are realising and are seeing day by day the ALP step back from some key IR positions: AWAs, collective bargaining, right to strike, unfair dismissal and now the Building and Construction Commission. I think it's fair to say a number of them are concerned."

Senator Siewert said the likelihood of the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate meant her party would seek to amend Labor's legislation in key areas and ensure WorkChoices was removed

Richard Di Natale: “The Greens were increasingly seen as the workplace party".

Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate is becoming quite important. The ALP can then safely lose the less worker-friendly policies, whilst retaining their business cred – but there are many issues where they can ensure Labor is kept honest.

Pike takes a swipe:

Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike, who fought a tight campaign against the Greens to retain her seat at the last state election, criticised Mr Mighell's donation.

"The Greens have been working hard to get rid of Labor members in Melbourne and his donation is hardly an action that would see a Rudd Labor government elected," she said.

That’s the same Pike that ran an anti-Green smear campaign against the Greens in Victoria, where the Greens defended themselves without attacking Labor back. Her seat was the best chance for a Green win, which seemed to have triggered the anti-Green brigade into action – and it hasn’t, obviously, ceased.

And her point is, in itself, bizarre – donating union funds to the Greens won’t elect Labor? Even if donations to the Greens meant more votes for them, then more votes would expire and then end up flowing to Labor, as they always do, thereby ensuring a Rudd Labor government. So even if it made sense, it’d still be wrong.

What the unions said:

AMWU acting national secretary Dave Oliver said his union would be looking to work with both the Greens and the ALP to "get rid of these rotten laws".

CFMEU national construction secretary Dave Noonan said no decision had been made yet about donations to the Greens.

Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Stephen Jones said he "wouldn't be disappointed" if the Greens held the balance of power in the Senate. "It's good to see the Greens taking a principled stance on IR," he said.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow said unions acknowledged the Greens had a strong history of supporting workers' rights. "However unions well understand that the only alternative government that could reinstate fair and balanced IR laws would be a Labor government," she added.

That’s not too bad, considering Oliver is not only an ALP member, but his position was previously held by Doug Cameron (before he got launched into a safe Labor seat). Sharan Burrow’s position was also previously held by Greg Combet (before he got launched into a safe Labor seat.) Not sure about the others, but from an ALP bunch – I guess that’s the best they can manage.

Andrew Bartlett has his say:

Andy points out how in 2004, Labor previously claimed he was supporting “fascist” and “evil legislation” when he supported the ABCC. Labor now plans to maintain the commission (in worse form than when the Democrats supported it) until 2010, which has upset a few unionists. He also notes the other Labor backflips, and stresses the need for an independent and rational voice in the Senate.

Nothing wrong with that, I agree. But he then slams the Greens as an inappropriate choice for that voice, because they are too busy “courting large trade union donations”, and “positioning themselves as more union than Labor”.

He then slams them again in the comments, because their claims of “donations eroding the democratic process” are a “double standard”, and that the Greens have attacked him for smaller donations before. He makes a note about how important the size of the donation is, and claims Democrats deserve the credit for the disclosure laws anyway. Ouch.

But the Greens are freaks, they have 3 pages of bylaws dedicated to preventing corruption in their own party through donations. There’s a review process, restrictions on who can donate, who can accept donations, transparency requirements, rejection policy, a definition of what constitutes a donation, and a detailed description of what constitutes a conflict of interest – using the OECD standard.

The Democrats seem to only have a few lines that meet this requirement – a pledge to not be “beholden to groups” (under Objectives), and a promise to obey funding laws (under Funding, in the Constitution).

There are many examples of corruption in the major parties, so checking their policies isn’t necessary. But essentially, I just don’t see how anyone could buy the Greens.

My point:
It's good to see the Greens' worker-justice policies being recognized.

And to the guy on Bartlett's blog that claims "there’s no reason why the Greens are any more or less immune to influence than any other political party." There are 883 reasons why - because that's how many words in the bylaws that prevent it. They are beholden to the Charter. Under no circumstances (not even under a conscience vote) can they act in contradiction of the Charter. They can act against national policy under conscience, or in the interests of the electorate.

This is spelled out in black and white, well thought out, thorough, and brilliant. The Greens can be branded 'just another party' when the others come close to this level of protection. Until then, give it a rest. They'll support unions in their social justice role regardless of whether they get no donations, or tens of thousands of dollars worth - because that's what they do.

The new deal.

I'm trying to keep track of Labor vs Liberal policies, and judge them accordingly for the election, but it's still a pretty fine line between outrage against ALP weak policy, and (expected) Liberal terrible policy.

So I'll make a deal with the ALP:

You take a gamble with unprincipled preferences again, and you go last.

Now I don't mind Fielding, I'm impressed with his voting patterns, considering - but he's no Risstrom. Another Green would have empowerd Barnaby ten-fold, and made a massive difference.

And by the way Kevin:


(From the ma of Ms Fits/that-chick-from-that-book-club-show/3RRR-lady. Meme'd up by Magic Bellybutton.