Tag: West Wing

On Russia – for Ben

Russia is a strange and mystical country full of socialists and iron-fisted military types. It surprises me they can see through the vodka induced stupor to bomb the crap out of a neighbouring country – let alone do so in defiance of a brokered peace deal. 

In all seriousness this conflict – and its timing (while the world is at play at the Olympics) worries me. Russia and China need an opportunity to flex their military might in the face of the US. This looks like a chance for them to do that. The US is stuffed – if they bite, they’ll probably either lose or have to nuke the crap out of Russia – neither seems like a wise move. The bearing it will have on the current presidential campaign will also be interesting – if McCain takes a strong stance it leaves Obama having to make an awkward decision.

The only easy solution I can see is for the US to topple Hugo Chavez in response – strike a blow against socialism and one for market based democracy. The analogies there are pretty endless – they’re similarly geographically remote from philosophical allies, they both influence the natural resource security of the larger country – and both have heads of state unpopular with the local neighbours but popular with the military superpower at the other corner of the globe.

That’s not really a solution – more a pointer to how complex this whole resource based empire game is. To quote the West Wing – “Free trade stops wars”.

Oil should be decommodified and used up as fast as possilbe. For free. By the masses. Then we’d have to use some initiative to wean ourselves off this dependency on a finite resource. Cost of living would stop growing astronomically and we’d all be happy.

It’s Time

Well, after a two month hiatus I figure it’s high time I provide some sort of update for the google spiders – who are probably this blog’s only current readers. Today’s post will be brought to you by the prefix “ob“.

Observations
So, K-Rudd has been PM for slightly longer than my blog free period. In fact he was sworn in the day before my last post. So I blame him for my lack of inspiration. Really he’s just boring. Boring, boring, boring (coincidentally the prefix bo is the reverse of ob). Only slightly more boring is the obstreperous Mr 9% – Nelson and his hapless team. Anyone who the Courier Mail captions as Brenden Abbott – dig up a copy from the 31st of January – is in political trouble. K-Rudd’s problem is that he’s all symbolism and no substance – his response to any issue is to talk – form a committee, a war cabinet, a talkfest. His speeches are grand – and loaded with symbolic guff. His apology speech was well crafted – but not Obamaesque (I’ll get to him later). Two months in to his reign we’ve had a symbolic (some would say token) ratification of Kyoto (which expires in 2012 – hardly a long term solution) – and a token (some would say symbolic) apology to the obviously obscenely treated aboriginal people – an apology which explicitly ruled out compensation. I have mixed feelings about compensation – I think there’s probably a case for some form of compensation. Now that the government has admitted they did the wrong thing they should probably have to pay for that mistake. The proverbial can of worms has been opened.

Obsessions
Another reason I haven’t been blogging lately must be the disproportionate amount of time and resourcing I’ve been giving to my current obsession – coffee. Robyn would probably agree – although she’s enjoying the benefits.

Here’s the progression I’ve gone through in terms of my coffee “habit”
1. Discovered home roasting – through coffeesnobs.com.au – I highly recommend their starter pack. But I’ve since been ordering through Ministry Grounds. I purchased a heat gun from eBay for the purpose of roasting my beans – with the view to building a corretto when I can locate a suitable breadmaker. At the moment I’m just using the heatgun and wok.
2. I was less than happy with our existing grinder – a little bladed number sold as a “herb and coffee” grinder. It was good as an introduction to the freshness of ground coffee – but didn’t produce a particularly even grind – so I purchased an EM0480 Sunbeam grinder second hand from coffeesnobs.com.au.
3. I recently shelled out $400 (plus freight) for a commercial Rancillio machine on eBay – it’s yet to arrive, but I’ll edit this post to include some pictures when my browser will let me.

Home roasted coffee is terrific. I highly recommend my new hobby.

Obama
Barack – the man I’ve dubbed “the new black” when it comes to US Presidential candidates – Obama has just won his tenth straight contest for the Democratic nomination. I’m nominally a Democrats fan in the US thanks to the West Wing. And I picked Barack a year ago – before he was cool.

Obligatory references to real life
Married life continues to be a barrel of caffeine induced laughs (see above). It really is great fun. We’ve recently filled our fish tank with a plethora of new marine life. We’re now leading the kid’s club at church on a Friday night – putting the kibosh on our social life during school term. An unwholesome amount of our spare time is spent playing Tetris on Facebook. Robyn has posted an almost blasphemous score of 946,000 or thereabouts.

A long time between drinks

Dear Blog Reader – after a month of silence it may be time for me to resurrect this ‘ere little piece of ego stroking personal indulgence I like to call my “Blog”. I call it my blog largely because that’s what it is – a blog pertaining to me and things that I want to write about. I’d like to be able to catch you up on the last month of happenings – but due to the constraints of time and the like I’ll give you the “nutshell” version. It was good. For those wanting a more extended analysis of the wedding, honeymoon, return to work and the normality of married life please call me on the phone – or maybe check out some photos here, and here.

Orpheus Island photos will be put online when we get our home internet connection working. It seems that in my hiatus some kerfuffle has kicked up over the future governance of the nation. Bring it on, I say. We spent some time over the last couple of weeks powering through series 7 of the West Wing. We were wondering what to fill our lives with now that we’ve watched all seven seasons (approximately a full week’s worth of viewing… which is pretty impressive) and the real thing pops up to occupy our screens. Elections are fun. Expect me to write a lot about them in coming posts.

This’ll be a short one – it’s mainly designed to let Leah know that my blog’s not dead – and let Ben know that I am paying attention to the election.

If the hat fits

It’s funny how a series of unconnected events can be strung together to make a cohesive topical argument – we could link a series of stories about North Queensland in the papers recently. The death of a tourist at the spectacular Yongala wreck dive on her honeymoon a couple of years ago and the subsequent questioning of her husband, the case of the missing sailors on Kaz II etc can be linked to suggest North Queensland is Australia’s Bermuda triangle… Or, in the case that I’m actually writing about I’ll link a TV series with an Australian news story and this Pakistani story…

In an episode of the West Wing filmed as a direct response to the 9-11 attacks, White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is interviewing a terror suspect who works at the White House in a policy role, his name has come up in investigations – or someone with the same name – and he was once questioned in relation to a bomb threat at his school… here’s a little bit of the script:

ALI: It’s not uncommon for Arab Americans to be the first suspected when that sort of thing happens.
LEO: I can’t imagine why.
ALI:Look…
LEO:No, I’m trying to figure out why anytime there’s any terrorist activity, people always assume its Arabs. I’m racking my brain.
ALI: I don’t know the answer to that, Mr. McGarry, but I can tell you it’s horrible.
LEO:Well, that’s the price you pay.
ALI: (angry) Excuse me? The price for what?
LEO (to the agent) Continue the questions.

After the real terrorist is caught Leo goes to see Ali in his office.

LEO:[solemnly] Good evening.
Ali looks up.
LEO:[stiffly] That’s the price you pay… for having the same physical features as criminals. That’s what I was gonna say.
ALI:[quietly] No kidding.
LEO: I’m sorry about that. Also about the crack I made about teaching Muslim women how to drive.
Ali looks down, taking this in. Leo, nervously, stiffly, his eyes wandering a bit, searches for the correct words.
LEO:I think if you talk to people who know me, they’d tell you that… that was unlike me, you know? We’re obviously all under, um… a greater than usual amount of… you know. And like you pointed out, with the shooting and everything…

A long silence falls between them. Ali looks up and searches Leo’s face.

Mistaken identity must suck if you’re of Arab descent – Bulldogs winger and Lebanese internationl, Hazem El Masri was recently at the wrong end of some from the NSW Police. El Masri was sitting outside a cafe in Sydney with two friends when 9 police officers came from nowhere and surrounded them – El Masri and his lawyer have, of course, claimed that this was racially motivated.

NSW Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Frank Mennilli says the community expects groups of loitering Arabs to be approached. He said the men were spoken to because they were sitting on a bench outside shops late at night and there had been break-ins and vandalism in the area over the past three or four months.

“We’ve got three male persons sitting on a bench after 11pm at night, the shops are closed, and I think the community would expect the police to go and speak to these people.”

Sure, it sucks. The police have to do this sort of thing because that’s the nature of the business – lebanese gangs have been responsible for all sorts of social ills in Sydney – but spare a thought for this guy…

“Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested Osama bin Laden twice, it was revealed Monday. Or at least they have arrested a man who looks very much like the al-Qa’eda leader.

More than six feet tall and with the same aquiline nose as bin Laden, Sher Akbar comes from an Afghan village, Bagh e Metal, in an area where US officials believe bin Laden has been hiding.”

This time contestants get voted into the house

The American presidential race is still some time off. Several candidates are yet to announce – the Democrats (left wing) have two candidates polling competitively – Barack Obama (who’s probably the closest thing in the race to the West Wing’s Jimmy Santos) and Hillary Clinton (Mrs Bill). The Republicans (right wing) are busy trying to overcome the special characteristics of the current administration led by Dubya and are yet to annoint a successor – NYC 9-11 Mayor Rudi Giuliani is tipped to throw his hat into the ring but with neither POTUS or Vice-POTUS standing for election they’ll be starting with a clean state. An article in this month’s aptly name “The Monthly” magazine uses the dirt free campaign exhibited in the final series of the West Wing as an opportunity to score points on the Howard government and the recent muckslinging between the incumbent (known in some circles as “the rodent”) and the challenger (a politician with a really fragile glass jaw who bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter). Art imitates life. The political process and behind the scenes machinations are shown for all to see in any reality television game show – the backroom deals, the back stabs, the back slaps – it’s all there. And now, from the creators of The Apprentice and Survivor (this is Donald “Wrestlemania” Trump and Mark Burnett) have joined forces with Myspace to bring you a new high point in reality television – the most political thing shown on prime time since big brother candidate Merlin wore his “free th(sic) refugees” protest shirt to an eviction (one feels his campaign would have had more traction if he’d either a: known how to spell “the” or b: campaigned to free th(sic) sick refugees… which reminds me – in the form of an electronic patent (and because all my good ideas keep being stolen)… I want to start a business called fooly(sic) productions – it’s here now. Documented. All mine.)…they give you this very special announcement (courtesy of Associated Press):

The online social networking site MySpace and reality TV producer Mark Burnett are teaming up to launch a search for an independent US presidential candidate.

Their political reality show “Independent” will come with a $US1 million ($1.2 million) cash prize and a catch: the winner can’t keep the money. The prize can be used to finance a run for the White House or can be given to a political action committee or political cause.
Contestants on the show, set to launch in early 2008, will meet the public and interact with supporters, protesters and others. An interactive “town hall” will give MySpace users and TV viewers a chance to rate their performance.

The full story is available here.