antiminke

I would like to think this is a hoax but I guess it's not:

"FakeYourSpace.com - a companion service for MySpace, Friendster and Facebook - will from March 1 allow customers to buy attractive "friends" for displaying on their profile pages." Age

Depressing reading:

'Tourism is already out of control, and unless the Cambodian government takes some pretty radical action to rein it in now much of Angkor's magic and heritage could be lost forever.' Guardian

One day, I will make a film and I will read this Guide Book For Guerrilla Filmmakers.

"Female koalas indulge in lesbian "sex sessions", rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers." NZ Herald

"In failing in its duty to David Hicks, the Government has failed all Australians and shaken the foundations of Australian law. Ultimately, the Hicks case is not just about Hicks, it is about the rule of law. If the Government can recklessly abandon the law in the case of one Australian, it can much more easily abandon the law and its duty to other Australians." Abandoning principle of law endangers us all

Someone asked why I'd still vote in Australian elections when I haven't lived there in so long. I guess it had never occurred to me that I wouldn't have an interest in Australian politics. Even though I've left, I'll probably return some day. And as I said, somewhat rantily, "I hate Howard with a passion, and I hate what he's done to Australia and I want him out so the country has some chance of claiming back 'mateship' and 'a fair go' and everything else he's co-opted into his slimy xenophobic misogynistic homo-panicked puniverse.

And on a personal level I want a leader who doesn't hate gay people."

From one extreme to another - on Wednesday I went to WANC, ate delicious vegan food, caught up with some friends and learnt how to flirt in Greek, and last night I got all dressed up and went to the Royal Albert Hall for the opening night of Madame Butterfly. It looked like there were seats available up in the gods, so go see it if you can.

I've just seen a friend's photos from the tree planting holiday. Guess which shoes are mine?

Is it just me or is your eye drawn to something that's not her hair in the photo of Britney captioned 'Britney's famous blonde locks' in this BBC article?

And FFS, it's just hair. Break up, cut hair - everyone's done it. Maybe not to that extent, but it's just a chick thing. And yes, I've done it, though it took me a while to get to buzzcut.

Same-sex relationships register in Victoria?

"Melbourne City Council has dipped its toe into the legal minefield of gay civil unions. As Kenneth Nguyen discovered, it may prove a catalyst for change across the state." The Age

I went to see Kylie at the V&A today. It's hard to believe they've devoted a whole exhibition to her, but it was actually surprisingly interesting to see the costumes. The early ones were a strange nostalgia trip and the later ones made me want to camp it up as a showgirl in a shiny outfit with a corset.

Update: after thinking about it more - I guess I expect to learn or have my thinking challenged in an exhibition, and I'm not sure that happened. So I hate to say it but overall it was more a display of pretty clothes than an exhibition.

Nothing particularly new - reports about Australians in the UK have said that people are now using as a chance to extend their professional skills and build up their savings before, but Why pulling pints is passe for the new breed of Aussie overseas is still a reasonably interesting read, particularly on returning expats:

"But knowing people who return to Australia is a different matter. Last March, based on a 2003 study by researcher Graeme Hugo, a Senate inquiry concluded that 30 per cent of expatriates were undecided on whether to return to Australia.

More contemporary research also shows that expats are staying put. The head of the Menzies Institute for Australian Studies in London, Carl Bridge, says growing numbers of Australians (particularly heterosexual couples) indicate they will never return."

I wonder if they thought to ask homosexual people whether the Australian governments' shocking record on gay issues puts them off returning.

If I had more braincells and more time, I'd read this Critical Thinking on the web Top Ten but as it is I'll have to pick up skerricks of wisdom where I can.

A fascinating article at the 24 Hour Museum about Finding Lesbian History in the Archives.

Yes, blah blah blah, I'm even getting sick of hearing myself crap on about it. But how do I reconcile my travel bug with my hippydom? Is going by rail or road where possible, and flying less and staying longer really enough?

"Travel educates and broadens the mind, and connects us to the rest of the world - which is especially important for Australians.

But how can we do it without being environmental vandals, especially as poor nations are expected to suffer the most from climate change?" Age

This is just... I'm not sure how to describe it. Suddenly this technology is serious, it's being used to save lives instead of just showing apartments for rent or where photos were taken on a map. And FWIW it could just as easily be Yahoo or another map with a public API.

"Google is playing an unlikely role in the Iraq war. Its online satellite map of the world, Google Earth, is being used to help people survive sectarian violence in Baghdad." BBC

It's just embarrassing: US veteran joins chorus of outrage at Howard

This article is old but since David Hicks is still in Guantanamo I think it's worth posting. It's also a fantastic example of the power of the arts.

"In June an open letter to the Prime Minister, signed by 76 of Australia's top legal minds (including four former Supreme and Federal Court judges), urged Mr Howard to take immediate action on Hicks' behalf to secure his rights under international law.

He is an Australian citizen and as such it was the Australian Government's duty to protect his rights; his incarceration was illegal, they argued; and Hicks, whether innocent or guilty, at least deserved a fair trial. The Australian Government's refusal to act, they said, has profound implications for the nation.
...
Even the British Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, whose own government is an active participant in the war on terrorism, condemned the goings-on at Guantanamo, describing its procedures as "unacceptable" and calling for its closure.

To all of this Prime Minister John Howard, speaking on our behalf, responded: "We make up our own minds about these things."

Theatre director Nigel Jamieson has also made up his mind on certain things. One of them is that what is happening to David Hicks at Guantanamo is unconscionable - whether he is innocent or guilty.

"If he were an axe murderer he would have rights," Jamieson says. "He would have a lawyer, he'd be free from physical and psychological abuse. David Hicks, as an Australian citizen, has rights. That's the first thing. But the second thing is that this is a country that defines itself by the belief in things like trial by jury, innocence until proved guilty, the Geneva conventions, the Declaration of Human Rights, those incredibly important documents. We were part of forming and forging these documents.

"These were things we thought incredibly important, the things we thought to be the bedrock of our civilisation and which defined our system," Jamieson says.

"What troubled me about the whole Hicks thing was that if we were going to accept a system which threw away a lot of those things, got rid of those safeguards, surely we owed it to ourselves and to the country to have a look at what that means.

"Not to have a look, not to have a debate, but just to quietly acquiesce, that really seemed shocking to me."
...
"My imagination is primarily a visual one," he says, "and when the project was first put to me, I was left with a strong image in my head of this human figure spinning and turning in a void.""

Doing the Guantanamo shuffle - it's really worth reading the rest of the article.

Social justice vs the environment vs all a Guardian readers' issues in one complicated bouquet in this BBC article.

To me the easy answer is 'don't buy out-of-season flowers'. Ok, I know it's not that simple, but it doesn't seem like European or African flowers are entirely ethical and green, so maybe buying flowers like this just isn't realistic anymore.

In other news, I think I just saw a robin in the garden. I've never seen a robin before!

I went on a tree planting holiday with Treesponsibility on the weekend. It was too snowy to do any planting on the Saturday so we went for walks instead, but on Sunday most of the snow had melted, and the sun even came out. It was lovely to get out of London, and even nicer to do something proactive for the environment. Treesponsibility are based in the Upper Calder Valley but it would be ace if similar projects were available all over the UK.

Yes, it snowed in London. And here are some cute pictures (not mine).

I shouldn't be amused by how quickly London falls apart when it snows just a little bit but it's hard to resist.

DRM (Digital Rights Management, or possibly Damaging Rights Management since it means I never buy downloadable music online) doesn't work. No, really?

"In an open letter on the Apple website, Mr Jobs argues that the copy protection software used to protect digital music downloads from piracy has not worked." BBC

In other news, snow tonight! The duck pond was nearly frozen over this morning, poor birds had to walk on top of the water like a flock of feathered Jesus.

Surely no shock?

"Women are failing to sell their IT skills effectively
...
research shows that over half (54 per cent) feel they need proof of qualifications to reinforce their experience whereas their male counterparts would simply talk their way into new jobs and projects.
...
An investigation by Computing (Computing, 18 January) found women working in the IT industry still feel they need to outperform their male counterparts to achieve the same level of success."

But is that perception or is that reality? Either way, no wonder this is happening:

"The number of female IT workers is declining, representing just 16 per cent of the industry compared with 19 to 21 per cent in 2000 according to figure released last year by IT trade association Intellect, despite government and industry initiatives to attract women to the profession. " Computing

Random article from The Age on pale Australians. I'm really not sure whether it's for or against, but the author still seems to talk about 'pale' people as if they'd made an effort to be pale. It doesn't seem to occur to people that it's not something you really get a choice over - I can be pink or white, but I can't be golden or brown.

Ah well. I came all the way to England, the land of the pasty, and I'm still one of the palest people I've ever met.

Very short review: last night I saw Kneehigh Theatre's excellent production of Cymbeline and enjoyed myself to much I'd go see anything else they did without bothering with published reviews.

Clive James, my hero

I think I've always had a mild intellectual challenge on him and in a way it's nice to acknowledge the previous generations of Australians who shaped the UK as we know it now.

He's about to start a podcast on the BBC, and has a website (though I wouldn't have called it 'the first personal multimedia extravaganza of its type anywhere in the world'): "His impressive multi-media website, which acts as a one-stop shop for much of his work, may encourage other broadcasters and writers to follow suit. There is work by James and his favourite authors, plus webcasts of dozens of interviews conducted in his living room with the likes of Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Cate Blanchett."