Last Thursday, Washington tripled an already punitive duty on the pungent cheese to punish Europe for maintaining a 12-year-old ban on US hormone-fed beef... The Americans slapped punitive duties on an array of other EU food imports, including fruit, chocolate and chewing gum, but none was subject to the 300 per cent reserved for Roquefort.Let's face it. Doha is a dead parrot.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Tariffication War continues
Bush's last act of revenge against the French escalates the protectionism stakes. From the Times:
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Higgs Boson discovered amongst Cheney correspondence
President Obama's new Goatse on Government policy has already led to the discovery of one of the most elusive particles in the universe. In the short time Obama aides have been allowing search engines to search government websites, the Higgs Boson was spotted in one of the former vice president's reports.
"I found it in a .pdf file amongst a study of peace-keeping responses from the Pentagon," said Vim-Jif Harpic of Saigon. "In between the case studies on Active Denial Systems mounted on black helicopters and the laser canon on the moon was this strange blot. When I went to print it out, there was this strange yipping sound from the printer and a flash of bright light. Man, it was beautiful and it smelled like strawberries."
Physicists later identified the presence of the Higgs boson by studying the ink sprayed onto the walls by the quantum accident. Scientists at CERN are reported to be "slightly annoyed but mainly overjoyed" at the discovery. "We've been beaten to the punch while the Large Hadron Collider has been out of action. But proof of the presence of Higgs bosons cements our greater understanding of the cosmos," said Professor Hubert Escoffier at CERN.
A spokesperson for President Obama said that the president was glad that "some good has come out of the last eight years."
"I found it in a .pdf file amongst a study of peace-keeping responses from the Pentagon," said Vim-Jif Harpic of Saigon. "In between the case studies on Active Denial Systems mounted on black helicopters and the laser canon on the moon was this strange blot. When I went to print it out, there was this strange yipping sound from the printer and a flash of bright light. Man, it was beautiful and it smelled like strawberries."
Physicists later identified the presence of the Higgs boson by studying the ink sprayed onto the walls by the quantum accident. Scientists at CERN are reported to be "slightly annoyed but mainly overjoyed" at the discovery. "We've been beaten to the punch while the Large Hadron Collider has been out of action. But proof of the presence of Higgs bosons cements our greater understanding of the cosmos," said Professor Hubert Escoffier at CERN.
A spokesperson for President Obama said that the president was glad that "some good has come out of the last eight years."
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Auckland 2nd again
From the NZ Herald:
Fast wireless internet is now available in Auckland.
Auckland became the first city in the country yesterday to offer the service, which allows users, for a small charge, to connect to the internet in certain areas in and around the CBD.
Good on Cr. Bhatnagar prodding the plot along to get WiFi in Auckland's CBD, but they're certainly not the first in the country. Haven't they heard of CafeNet?
BHO presents...
Congratulations to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. And thank you American voters, who have demonstrated that you can learn from your mistakes.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Balls to 2009
Okay, nth time lucky. Hopefully I'll finish this bastard Balls to 2009 post this time. Truth be told, I've been hacking and slashing at this essay most of January. The early drafts ended up deleted with extreme prejudice. I'd end up too drunk, too stoned, or passed out whilst stuck on a hell tangent about the failed revolutions of 1848. Later versions were stored away in the Edit Posts folder, sitting there like a mother-in-law whenever a new thought came up. Everything was too huge, too big. I wouldn't say above my pay grade. That's not the point. Street cleaners are above my pay grade.
If you're not depressed with the world economy after reading the double whammy in the New York Times by Michael Lewis and Michael Einhorn, The End of the Financial World As We Know It and How to Repair a Broken Financial World, well good on you. The recommendations in the latter article are all worthwhile, but unable to contain the damage. Of course you reform the Securities Commission. Of course to take the piss out the ratings agencies. And why are Credit Default Swaps still legal? Then again, Bernie Madoff is still out on bail even after getting caught trying to send jewellery to relatives. Money can grease the palm of Lady Justice in a way that an innocent on Death Row can't.
Some people are going to come out of this very very rich. Just as Fay Richwhite and other currency speculators made fortunes out of NZ's currency as the Kiwi floated back in 1985, imagine the vultures circling the US bailout cash. What would you do for a slice of US$1 trillion and more? The distressed asset posse are already licking their chops.
For the rest of us, the damage is done. That unquantifiable element of trust has disappeared. Naked nation-state self-interest is in vogue. Britain was an early adopter when it used anti-terrorism laws to preferentially remove its assets from Iceland's bankruptcy. While the steel tariffs are being raised in India, China and Vietnam, steel lobbies in the US are hassling to ensure that whatever Obama's infrastructure plans include steel as an ingredient. The EU is tinkering with tariffs as part of their bailout for their economic woes. Meantime, Fonterra is hoarding non-subsidised milk powder as demand shrivels.
Consider the fate of recycling programmes around the country. Commodity prices are collapsing in general, but recycling in particular is hard hit. Wellington City Council is considering stopping the collection of glass, as it's no longer economical. The global price of plastics has halved in recent months:
Consider the efforts to create some genuine international financial standards, which are bogged down in petty self-interest. The lack of trust that exists between entities will not be going away any time soon. There's the very real prospect of really big failures that are being papered over with some really creative accounting, so there's a certain fear in dropping the numerical obfuscation.
Meantime, the Greek Chorus of the MSM is facing challenging times of their own. TV media will be facing sharply declining advertising revenue. The plight of the Tribune and New York Times shows the print media have issues too. The Brits have their own way of doing things, as the purchase of London's Evening Standard by Russian billionaire and former KGB man Alexander Lebedev. There have been talks on the QT regarding a merger of Channel Four and Channel 5. The merger will presumably be called Channel 4.5.
Media arms in NZ have similar existential crises. The NZ Herald and Listener are looking for new owners. I reckon the Herald will eventually find a buyer, but the Listener will be on the endangered list. How long before the DomPost becomes the DomPress? And will cost-cutting at TVNZ mean that the replacement for Agenda will be hosted by Jason Gunn?
You'll see a continuation of mergers and consolidations going on, whether it's commodities, services or press freedom. Strangely enough, this will acerbate the situation, as jobs are lost and even more debt is loaded on balance sheets to pay for it all. The current plight of Bank of America, who are asking for a bailout to help pay for their acquisition of Merill Lynch, is a timely example.
All about are signs that everyone's just looking after their own back yard and damn the rest. Governments around the world will have their hands full with keeping their citizens occupied. If it takes a tariff or non-trade barrier to keep the domestics employed, so be it. No leader wants ten or more percent of their populations unemployed. No good can come of that. Whether it's crime, welfare or civil unrest, no-one wants revolting idleness.
There will be unemployment. The US is losing half a million jobs a month, and even with the stimulus packages there's no sign of this slowing down. The services sector is getting thumped. Construction, retail, real estate agents, property management, advertising, all are going to get burned. Kiwi Income Property Trust and Westfield, watch out. The malls are going to get mauled. The IT market is facing decimation. Dell is closing manufacturing in Ireland, as the real estate market is providing more destruction to the economy than anything since the IRA disarmed.
Seven percent unemployment is now being touted around. Call me a pessimist, but I reckon we'll hit ten in 2009. The knock-on effects from overseas will knock us here too. Not just in obvious ones such as dairy, tourism and baby strollers. Just as NZ exported its unemployment in the good times, a lot of those prodigal expatriates will be returning to the nest as their adopted countries export their unemployment. Being poor in NZ is better than being poor in almost any other country. More social welfare than China, better healthcare than the US, and less dangerous fauna than Australia.
In summary, the financial crisis will become an economic one, if it hasn't already. According to Intrade, a site similar to iPredict, the chances the US slipping into Depression in 2009 is now 54 percent (Hat Tip Marginal Revolution). All the above is to try and get it all to sink in. We are really in the shit.
To coin a phrase, what can one do with 200,000 unemployed NZers? While Roger Douglas is right, that jobs are not the only thing to look at, KiwiPolitico's criticism of ignoring the human element is valid. While Roger's economic argument holds true, there's the political reality that double digit unemployment brings. 200,000 or more bored, broke and belligerent beneficiaries brings trouble.
This is one of the sticking points I have with NZX's ideas to boost the economy. Changing tax structures on capital investment is all very good in theory. But what if that capital investment is used to upgrade technology like Air NZ's new automated check-in? Essentially taxpayers could be subsidising companies to make people, or at least positions, redundant.
This is the crux of the problem; how to achieve greater productivity AND more jobs. Grow the cake, as Rodney and Roger are wont to say. The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive, after all. The lazy answer is tariffs, but that's a cop out. The big problem of tariffs is not introducing them, but how to get rid of them when the reason they were introduced no longer applies.
You need a better answer, so it's good to see Key has tasked NZX's Mark Weldon to front the Employment Summit. The editor of NZ Management magazine (that's the publication that doesn't consider Colin James too boring) has popped up on Pundit to sing Weldon's praises, while Cactus Kate pops the bubble on a certain underperforming CEO.
CK has a point, in that the NZX could do well to get its own house in order with greater transparency of its charges and sterner enforcement of its business. However, with the NZ Institute's David Skilling up-skilling to Singapore, there needs to be someone outside the political circus talking about these things. Between him and Lloyd Morrison, they've been banging on about the growth engine thing since before the election. So, in the absence of any other voices doing a better job of it, fair go. That's not to say there aren't other ideas. Bruce Sheppard, for example, is also giving it a good bash.
The stakes are high. As I said at the beginning, 1848 has been on my mind a bit. Not so much the socialist fervour, but in the global restlessness of it. The EU, the US, Russia and China are facing civil unrest, unless they can get their people working again. Around the world, police will play a pivotal role in how this plays out.
Here in NZ, it could be anything that might spark it off; unemployment, the police spy ring, the Tuhoe terrorist court appearances, even the Great ISP Copyright Cut-off starting in March that brings things to a head. Beware the marches of March. Or July. Appropriate responses to public pressure valves will be closely scrutinised. Greece and Australia have shown a glimpse of what can happen when the cops get it wrong.
And now, seeing how I've probably depressed the crap out of you, I'd better tag on a Hollywood ending. 2009 will also see the demise of boy racers. As the job market shrinks, car credit dries up and car maintenance costs pile up, boy racers will get their thrills vicariously by going to stock car derbies and off-road rallies. Rest easy, Mayor Bob!
Intoxication is recession-proof. Whilst many restaurants and pubs will shut up shop, there'll be start-ups in homebrew beer, spirits, and (even more) marijuana growing. While the market for organic produce takes a hit, bulk food barns will become more popular. Childhood obesity will no longer be a problem.
And since I can't think of anything else positive to say, I'll leave you with a funny condom ad:
If you're not depressed with the world economy after reading the double whammy in the New York Times by Michael Lewis and Michael Einhorn, The End of the Financial World As We Know It and How to Repair a Broken Financial World, well good on you. The recommendations in the latter article are all worthwhile, but unable to contain the damage. Of course you reform the Securities Commission. Of course to take the piss out the ratings agencies. And why are Credit Default Swaps still legal? Then again, Bernie Madoff is still out on bail even after getting caught trying to send jewellery to relatives. Money can grease the palm of Lady Justice in a way that an innocent on Death Row can't.
Some people are going to come out of this very very rich. Just as Fay Richwhite and other currency speculators made fortunes out of NZ's currency as the Kiwi floated back in 1985, imagine the vultures circling the US bailout cash. What would you do for a slice of US$1 trillion and more? The distressed asset posse are already licking their chops.
For the rest of us, the damage is done. That unquantifiable element of trust has disappeared. Naked nation-state self-interest is in vogue. Britain was an early adopter when it used anti-terrorism laws to preferentially remove its assets from Iceland's bankruptcy. While the steel tariffs are being raised in India, China and Vietnam, steel lobbies in the US are hassling to ensure that whatever Obama's infrastructure plans include steel as an ingredient. The EU is tinkering with tariffs as part of their bailout for their economic woes. Meantime, Fonterra is hoarding non-subsidised milk powder as demand shrivels.
Consider the fate of recycling programmes around the country. Commodity prices are collapsing in general, but recycling in particular is hard hit. Wellington City Council is considering stopping the collection of glass, as it's no longer economical. The global price of plastics has halved in recent months:
The price of recycled cans has fallen from £200 a tonne to £20 a tonne. Paper and card has fallen from £60 a tonne to just £10 a tonne, while certain plastics have halved to around £50 a tonne.Raw aluminium has also lost over half its value in the last five months. Rio Tinto is selling its share of an aluminium refinery and China.Who is buying it up? Why, the Chinese of course. If you're going to spend your domestic recovery plan on infrastructure, it makes sense to outsource the hard yakka to the cheapest site, whilst keeping most of the yuan in the family. It will interesting to see if the Rio Tinto de-leveraging plan has put any squeeze on Bill English's electorate. What's the price of Tiwai Point?
Consider the efforts to create some genuine international financial standards, which are bogged down in petty self-interest. The lack of trust that exists between entities will not be going away any time soon. There's the very real prospect of really big failures that are being papered over with some really creative accounting, so there's a certain fear in dropping the numerical obfuscation.
Meantime, the Greek Chorus of the MSM is facing challenging times of their own. TV media will be facing sharply declining advertising revenue. The plight of the Tribune and New York Times shows the print media have issues too. The Brits have their own way of doing things, as the purchase of London's Evening Standard by Russian billionaire and former KGB man Alexander Lebedev. There have been talks on the QT regarding a merger of Channel Four and Channel 5. The merger will presumably be called Channel 4.5.
Media arms in NZ have similar existential crises. The NZ Herald and Listener are looking for new owners. I reckon the Herald will eventually find a buyer, but the Listener will be on the endangered list. How long before the DomPost becomes the DomPress? And will cost-cutting at TVNZ mean that the replacement for Agenda will be hosted by Jason Gunn?
You'll see a continuation of mergers and consolidations going on, whether it's commodities, services or press freedom. Strangely enough, this will acerbate the situation, as jobs are lost and even more debt is loaded on balance sheets to pay for it all. The current plight of Bank of America, who are asking for a bailout to help pay for their acquisition of Merill Lynch, is a timely example.
All about are signs that everyone's just looking after their own back yard and damn the rest. Governments around the world will have their hands full with keeping their citizens occupied. If it takes a tariff or non-trade barrier to keep the domestics employed, so be it. No leader wants ten or more percent of their populations unemployed. No good can come of that. Whether it's crime, welfare or civil unrest, no-one wants revolting idleness.
There will be unemployment. The US is losing half a million jobs a month, and even with the stimulus packages there's no sign of this slowing down. The services sector is getting thumped. Construction, retail, real estate agents, property management, advertising, all are going to get burned. Kiwi Income Property Trust and Westfield, watch out. The malls are going to get mauled. The IT market is facing decimation. Dell is closing manufacturing in Ireland, as the real estate market is providing more destruction to the economy than anything since the IRA disarmed.
Seven percent unemployment is now being touted around. Call me a pessimist, but I reckon we'll hit ten in 2009. The knock-on effects from overseas will knock us here too. Not just in obvious ones such as dairy, tourism and baby strollers. Just as NZ exported its unemployment in the good times, a lot of those prodigal expatriates will be returning to the nest as their adopted countries export their unemployment. Being poor in NZ is better than being poor in almost any other country. More social welfare than China, better healthcare than the US, and less dangerous fauna than Australia.
In summary, the financial crisis will become an economic one, if it hasn't already. According to Intrade, a site similar to iPredict, the chances the US slipping into Depression in 2009 is now 54 percent (Hat Tip Marginal Revolution). All the above is to try and get it all to sink in. We are really in the shit.
To coin a phrase, what can one do with 200,000 unemployed NZers? While Roger Douglas is right, that jobs are not the only thing to look at, KiwiPolitico's criticism of ignoring the human element is valid. While Roger's economic argument holds true, there's the political reality that double digit unemployment brings. 200,000 or more bored, broke and belligerent beneficiaries brings trouble.
This is one of the sticking points I have with NZX's ideas to boost the economy. Changing tax structures on capital investment is all very good in theory. But what if that capital investment is used to upgrade technology like Air NZ's new automated check-in? Essentially taxpayers could be subsidising companies to make people, or at least positions, redundant.
This is the crux of the problem; how to achieve greater productivity AND more jobs. Grow the cake, as Rodney and Roger are wont to say. The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive, after all. The lazy answer is tariffs, but that's a cop out. The big problem of tariffs is not introducing them, but how to get rid of them when the reason they were introduced no longer applies.
You need a better answer, so it's good to see Key has tasked NZX's Mark Weldon to front the Employment Summit. The editor of NZ Management magazine (that's the publication that doesn't consider Colin James too boring) has popped up on Pundit to sing Weldon's praises, while Cactus Kate pops the bubble on a certain underperforming CEO.
CK has a point, in that the NZX could do well to get its own house in order with greater transparency of its charges and sterner enforcement of its business. However, with the NZ Institute's David Skilling up-skilling to Singapore, there needs to be someone outside the political circus talking about these things. Between him and Lloyd Morrison, they've been banging on about the growth engine thing since before the election. So, in the absence of any other voices doing a better job of it, fair go. That's not to say there aren't other ideas. Bruce Sheppard, for example, is also giving it a good bash.
The stakes are high. As I said at the beginning, 1848 has been on my mind a bit. Not so much the socialist fervour, but in the global restlessness of it. The EU, the US, Russia and China are facing civil unrest, unless they can get their people working again. Around the world, police will play a pivotal role in how this plays out.
Here in NZ, it could be anything that might spark it off; unemployment, the police spy ring, the Tuhoe terrorist court appearances, even the Great ISP Copyright Cut-off starting in March that brings things to a head. Beware the marches of March. Or July. Appropriate responses to public pressure valves will be closely scrutinised. Greece and Australia have shown a glimpse of what can happen when the cops get it wrong.
And now, seeing how I've probably depressed the crap out of you, I'd better tag on a Hollywood ending. 2009 will also see the demise of boy racers. As the job market shrinks, car credit dries up and car maintenance costs pile up, boy racers will get their thrills vicariously by going to stock car derbies and off-road rallies. Rest easy, Mayor Bob!
Intoxication is recession-proof. Whilst many restaurants and pubs will shut up shop, there'll be start-ups in homebrew beer, spirits, and (even more) marijuana growing. While the market for organic produce takes a hit, bulk food barns will become more popular. Childhood obesity will no longer be a problem.
And since I can't think of anything else positive to say, I'll leave you with a funny condom ad:
Friday, January 02, 2009
Reasons to be Cheerful 5
"The meek will inherit the earth, but only after the rich and powerful have finished with it. By then, it won't be worth having." - Marty Feldman
In order to procrastinate on the Balls to 2009 post a bit longer, and be distracted by happier thoughts, here's the annual round-up of escapism into film. Sure, there's snappier sights saying much the same thing. Wired, Film.com, The Times, and Kate Roger at TV3 have some decent picks.
What's the time, Dr Manhattan? Will Watchmen open on my birthday, or will Fox and Warner still be throwing lawyers at each other? While a movie can never do justice to the source material, it looks like it will be closer to Alan Moore's ideas than the movie versions of From Hell or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ever were. Watchmen has gone through all known levels of development hell. I remember the early 90s when Terry Gilliam and Robert De Niro were being associated with a Watchmen movie. Just get on with it!
Anything by Darren Aronofsky is good. Yes, even The Fountain. Give me inaccessible stories involving Spanish conquistadores and interstellar travel over Indiana Jones and the Nuked Fridge any day. The Wrestler is a must see. Even professional wrestler Mick Foley digs the story. It's not art unless someone suffers, and Mickey Rourke does suffering well. Easy the Marv.
There's agony a plenty in Revolutionary Road, featuring Di Caprio and Winslet in this Anti-Titanic of a plotline. Sam Mendes gives suburbia another well deserved bash in the ego. Christopher Hitchens and Roger Ebert sum up this cul de sac of desperation best. Must get the book. It'll go nicely alongside The Corrections.
An actualised revolutionary, Che Guevara, gets the Soderbergh treatment. All six hours of it. I came away from The Motorcycle Diaries with the impression that Che was nothing more than a charlatan who would promise anything to get what he wanted. For a double feature, I'd rather watch Rodriguez and Tarantino's Grindhouse movies again. Zoe Bell rocks, Che doesn't.
Nor am I holding my breath for Benjamin Button. No disrespect to David Fincher. Like Soderbergh, brilliant director. It's just the subject matter that's the problem. In Button's case, the unexplainable conceit of a man born old and growing young. There's fantasy and then there's impossibility. In this case, the second law of thermodynamics.
You may as well invent a character who wasn't affected by the law of gravity, but floated about wherever he felt. At least Dr Manhattan is conceivable. His beginning is explained. A fully grown, fully aged adult man is inconceivable. Roger Ebert is right, it's just wrong.
Another way a character could escape gravity is by tying a whole lot of balloons to their house and floating it across to South America. That's the plot of Pixar's latest effort, Up. Emboldened by Wall-E's success, the people at Pixar are upping the ante in the story department. The teaser trailer is a joy, as is this short clip involving an old man and a boy scout.
Or you could go universally fantastic to float your boat.
But all is forgiven with Soderbergh because of The Informant, which is promising to do to agricultural lobbies what The Insider did for tobacco. The strain on free trade could do with all the help it can get right now, but that's another blog post. Matt Damon chubs up for the role in between Bourne franchise obligations.
Mindless action movie for 2009 will be The International, not Terminator Salvation. This is because fighting bankers is scarier than fighting unkillable robots from the future. Features everyman world saver Clive Owen and Naomi Watts (yum).
Unusual premise of the year goes to The Box. Directed by the guy who made Donnie Darko, a couple are given possession of a box for 24 hours. In the box is a button. If they press the button, they become rich but someone they don't know dies. As far as moral dilemmas go, it's cleaner than Saw but more personal than The Dark Knight's ferry stand-off. I wonder if the deaths are the penultimate recipients who pressed the button?
In the comedy department, there's The Boat That Rocked (pirate radio station antics), The Brothers Bloom (with the DNA of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), and whatever Sacha Baron Cohen calls his Bruno film. Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds covers the exploitation circuit, while Sin City 2 awaits a 2010 opening, maybe. Exploitation name of 2009 goes to Lesbian Vampire Killers. Great title, shame I'm all coming-of-aged out after Juno, Superbad and Pineapple Express.
But the movie I'm most looking forward to this year is the one I don't know about yet. In between the credit crunch and the Screen Actors Guild strike, Hollywood is going to take a back seat to some little ripper from off-shore. It will be like Slumdog Millionaire, but more like 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days or maybe Lust, Caution.
Then again, it might be Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.
In order to procrastinate on the Balls to 2009 post a bit longer, and be distracted by happier thoughts, here's the annual round-up of escapism into film. Sure, there's snappier sights saying much the same thing. Wired, Film.com, The Times, and Kate Roger at TV3 have some decent picks.
What's the time, Dr Manhattan? Will Watchmen open on my birthday, or will Fox and Warner still be throwing lawyers at each other? While a movie can never do justice to the source material, it looks like it will be closer to Alan Moore's ideas than the movie versions of From Hell or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ever were. Watchmen has gone through all known levels of development hell. I remember the early 90s when Terry Gilliam and Robert De Niro were being associated with a Watchmen movie. Just get on with it!
Anything by Darren Aronofsky is good. Yes, even The Fountain. Give me inaccessible stories involving Spanish conquistadores and interstellar travel over Indiana Jones and the Nuked Fridge any day. The Wrestler is a must see. Even professional wrestler Mick Foley digs the story. It's not art unless someone suffers, and Mickey Rourke does suffering well. Easy the Marv.
There's agony a plenty in Revolutionary Road, featuring Di Caprio and Winslet in this Anti-Titanic of a plotline. Sam Mendes gives suburbia another well deserved bash in the ego. Christopher Hitchens and Roger Ebert sum up this cul de sac of desperation best. Must get the book. It'll go nicely alongside The Corrections.
An actualised revolutionary, Che Guevara, gets the Soderbergh treatment. All six hours of it. I came away from The Motorcycle Diaries with the impression that Che was nothing more than a charlatan who would promise anything to get what he wanted. For a double feature, I'd rather watch Rodriguez and Tarantino's Grindhouse movies again. Zoe Bell rocks, Che doesn't.
Nor am I holding my breath for Benjamin Button. No disrespect to David Fincher. Like Soderbergh, brilliant director. It's just the subject matter that's the problem. In Button's case, the unexplainable conceit of a man born old and growing young. There's fantasy and then there's impossibility. In this case, the second law of thermodynamics.
You may as well invent a character who wasn't affected by the law of gravity, but floated about wherever he felt. At least Dr Manhattan is conceivable. His beginning is explained. A fully grown, fully aged adult man is inconceivable. Roger Ebert is right, it's just wrong.
Another way a character could escape gravity is by tying a whole lot of balloons to their house and floating it across to South America. That's the plot of Pixar's latest effort, Up. Emboldened by Wall-E's success, the people at Pixar are upping the ante in the story department. The teaser trailer is a joy, as is this short clip involving an old man and a boy scout.
Or you could go universally fantastic to float your boat.
But all is forgiven with Soderbergh because of The Informant, which is promising to do to agricultural lobbies what The Insider did for tobacco. The strain on free trade could do with all the help it can get right now, but that's another blog post. Matt Damon chubs up for the role in between Bourne franchise obligations.
Mindless action movie for 2009 will be The International, not Terminator Salvation. This is because fighting bankers is scarier than fighting unkillable robots from the future. Features everyman world saver Clive Owen and Naomi Watts (yum).
Unusual premise of the year goes to The Box. Directed by the guy who made Donnie Darko, a couple are given possession of a box for 24 hours. In the box is a button. If they press the button, they become rich but someone they don't know dies. As far as moral dilemmas go, it's cleaner than Saw but more personal than The Dark Knight's ferry stand-off. I wonder if the deaths are the penultimate recipients who pressed the button?
In the comedy department, there's The Boat That Rocked (pirate radio station antics), The Brothers Bloom (with the DNA of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), and whatever Sacha Baron Cohen calls his Bruno film. Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds covers the exploitation circuit, while Sin City 2 awaits a 2010 opening, maybe. Exploitation name of 2009 goes to Lesbian Vampire Killers. Great title, shame I'm all coming-of-aged out after Juno, Superbad and Pineapple Express.
But the movie I'm most looking forward to this year is the one I don't know about yet. In between the credit crunch and the Screen Actors Guild strike, Hollywood is going to take a back seat to some little ripper from off-shore. It will be like Slumdog Millionaire, but more like 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days or maybe Lust, Caution.
Then again, it might be Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
New Improved Subprime!
Now that many Americans are living in their cars after losing their unaffordable houses, GM and GMAC are now providing unaffordable loans for their obsolete stock:
Through January 5, GM will offer zero percent to 4.9 percent financing on loans of up to five years on some 2008 model-year vehicles, and 3.9 to 5.9 percent on some 2009 vehicles. Many of the vehicles also carry cash discounts of $500 to $4,250.OK, it's a smaller market in some respects to the housing meltdown. But with the US government picking up the tab one way or another, there's Fool's Gold to be had. It's madness like this that puts me off writing a Balls to 2009 post. The worst case scenario keeps getting worse.
GMAC, meanwhile, will extend loans to retail buyers with credit scores, known as FICO, of 621 or higher. In October, it had restricted loans to borrowers with scores of 700 or higher. Many analysts consider borrowers with credit scores of 620 or lower to be "subprime." The median U.S. credit score is 723, according to Fair Isaac Corp's myFICO unit.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Alternative Xmas programming
Here in NZ we'll be missing the secular programming of a new Wallace & Gromit adventure and a Christmas message from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the UK has to look forward to. While the kiddies are engrossed in a Pixar marathon on TV2 and the crinklies have passed out in front of the Queen's Message on TV1, I have prepared some alternative amusements.
The Economist has Credit Crunch, the board game as a free download. You too can be like Ben Bernanke and print money! Live life by the toss of a coin, just like hedge fund managers! Hours of fun, hegemony and tears with this one.
Bush, Putin, Merkel, Sarkozy, Blair, Brown and Ahmadinejad sing Silent Night.
And the main feature, George Carlin's 2005 show Life is Worth Losing.
The Economist has Credit Crunch, the board game as a free download. You too can be like Ben Bernanke and print money! Live life by the toss of a coin, just like hedge fund managers! Hours of fun, hegemony and tears with this one.
Bush, Putin, Merkel, Sarkozy, Blair, Brown and Ahmadinejad sing Silent Night.
And the main feature, George Carlin's 2005 show Life is Worth Losing.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Hymn from him
Hippy holidays, have a high old time, catch you in 2009. Here's Kevin Bloody Wilson singing my favourite Christmas song:
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Weekend at Bernie's
If 2007 was when the sub-prime meltdown caused the US economy to crap its pants, and 2008 was when it turned into explosive diarrhoea, 2009 could be the year the US shits out its intestines. The fuck-ups are snowballing and there's a long way to go yet before it hits bottom.
It was years between the dot com bubble popping and Enron pustule bursting. These days, it's difficult to walk down Wall Street without seeing the latest pin-striped giant dominoes falling. Bear Sterns, Lehmans, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, Citigroup, Chrysler, General Motors. It's keeping graphic artists busy coming up ways to get one's head around these ginormous numbers flying about. Slate has a nice onion of debt.
And that's just the federal bailout costs so far. There's the Fonzie of Ponzi Bernie Madoff, the man who jumped the $50 billion dollar shark. The story makes engrossing reading. Here's the latest in the NYT, the Financial Times has in-depth coverage, or you could try any of the 56,364 stories (and counting) on Google News. That's roughly $1 million of disappeared money per story. Madoff is now in danger of getting killed by Yiddish ninjas, as there's so many people who want to throw Star of Davids at him. I'd hate to be his food taster.
The institutional and personal losses from all this have spread well beyond US borders. While Iceland went under the waves months ago, Britain and the EU are sloping down into recessions. Russia's currency reserves are taking a hammering and is sickening quickly as the price of oil stays resolutely below what was budgeted for.
While China's growth is slowing and its manufacturing sector is facing less overseas demand, its massive foreign currency reserves leave it healthier than most. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend this Q&A in the Atlantic with Gao Xiqing, who is responsible for managing one tenth of China's dollar holdings, some $200 billion (Hat Tip TVHE):
It was years between the dot com bubble popping and Enron pustule bursting. These days, it's difficult to walk down Wall Street without seeing the latest pin-striped giant dominoes falling. Bear Sterns, Lehmans, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, Citigroup, Chrysler, General Motors. It's keeping graphic artists busy coming up ways to get one's head around these ginormous numbers flying about. Slate has a nice onion of debt.
And that's just the federal bailout costs so far. There's the Fonzie of Ponzi Bernie Madoff, the man who jumped the $50 billion dollar shark. The story makes engrossing reading. Here's the latest in the NYT, the Financial Times has in-depth coverage, or you could try any of the 56,364 stories (and counting) on Google News. That's roughly $1 million of disappeared money per story. Madoff is now in danger of getting killed by Yiddish ninjas, as there's so many people who want to throw Star of Davids at him. I'd hate to be his food taster.
The institutional and personal losses from all this have spread well beyond US borders. While Iceland went under the waves months ago, Britain and the EU are sloping down into recessions. Russia's currency reserves are taking a hammering and is sickening quickly as the price of oil stays resolutely below what was budgeted for.
While China's growth is slowing and its manufacturing sector is facing less overseas demand, its massive foreign currency reserves leave it healthier than most. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend this Q&A in the Atlantic with Gao Xiqing, who is responsible for managing one tenth of China's dollar holdings, some $200 billion (Hat Tip TVHE):
The simple truth today is that your economy is built on the global economy. And it’s built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don’t you come over and … I won’t say kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money.Talk to the Chinese! Talk to the Middle Easterners! And pull your troops back! Take the troops back, demobilize many of the troops, so that you can save some money rather than spending $2 billion every day on them. And then tell your people that you need to save, and come out with a long-term, sustainable financial policy.
It is a sign of the strange times that we live in that this IMF-like advice is being given to the US by a Chinese representative. But he's spot on. The "balance of financial terror," a variation on Mutually Assured Destruction but using financial instead of nuclear instruments, will only handle so much strain. And there will be more strain. The dramatic! sensational! new policy of Quantitative Easing, otherwise known as printing money, runs the very real risk of causing a run on the dollar. And if that happens, well, that's the intestinal enema we should all be worried about.
Cuckoo Cocoon
Spying is not all the Life of Reilly, and look what happened to him. Nor is it the pulp fiction world of James Bond, the spy who never dies, never loses a limb. Such is the disdain in which spies are held, the last capital crime in New Zealand was treason. To betray one's own people was recognised to be worse than murder, worse than rape. The sentence for treason now is life imprisonment. Double agents can thank the Declaration of Human Rights for that reprieve. So when Matt McCarten says that Gilchrist was lucky he hadn't caught him, I can see what he means.
But spies are only pawns, and the police pwned Gilchrist. They used him and he enjoyed it. After all, he was living a dream. As Neil Gaiman pointed out in A Game of You, little boys dream of their secret identites. Gilchrist had his alter-ego paid for and approved by the state. He could play the agent provocateur with impunity and immunity. Never mind that his little dream was poisoning other people's dreams, he was validated.
Then Rochelle Rees woke up and the reality became the nightmare. For in the real world of espionage, it's hard to tell the smoke from the mirrors. As Paul Buchanan notes, there may be more to this than meets the eye:
Now for some Monkey Dust, dedicated to Nevil Gibson:
But spies are only pawns, and the police pwned Gilchrist. They used him and he enjoyed it. After all, he was living a dream. As Neil Gaiman pointed out in A Game of You, little boys dream of their secret identites. Gilchrist had his alter-ego paid for and approved by the state. He could play the agent provocateur with impunity and immunity. Never mind that his little dream was poisoning other people's dreams, he was validated.
Then Rochelle Rees woke up and the reality became the nightmare. For in the real world of espionage, it's hard to tell the smoke from the mirrors. As Paul Buchanan notes, there may be more to this than meets the eye:
The fact that the Mr. Gilchrist did not practice electronic security in his emailed reports to his Police handlers (as easy as establishing remote accounts on large internet providers), then asked his computer technician girlfriend to fix a minor technical problem on the home computer he was using to send his reports is evidence of supreme stupidity, amateurism, or perhaps something else. It was a very convenient way of “outing” that particular individual, who then expressed remorse for his actions.Armed with a bullshit detector and not a smoke detector though, I'm hoping it's just stupidity or complacency that blew Gilchrist's cover. Likewise, I'm hoping that Gilchrist was the only cuckoo in the village. But I'm not putting money on it. The Winstons that Howard Broad told on Monday had been disproved by Friday. If this thing isn't quarantined and exposed to light soon, we may very well have a virulent form of cuckoo flu on our hands.
Now for some Monkey Dust, dedicated to Nevil Gibson:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
In defence of Muntadar al-Zaidi
Let Muntadar al-Zaidi go. In the eyes of the billions of witnesses who saw what happened, he is innocent. It is punishment enough that government stooges beat the shit out of him while the press conference went on. But withholding habeus corpus on the guy brave enough to sum up the Bush Doctrine in two size 10 shoes and a string of curses is a gross injustice. To charge him on trumped up charges of terrorism or insulting a foreign leader is proof that the US has learned nothing.
Never mind that the insult, like the shoes, went over Bush's head. We don't need any more proof about the Bush mindset. The man is as thick as a Soviet-era condom and about as diplomatic. His own party has disavowed knowledge of him, his country hates him, world leaders snub him. So he then decides that it would be a good idea to have one final tour of his mission accomplishments. Jane Young bitingly sums up that plan.
Not that prime minister of Iraq al-Maliki can afford to snub the man who has destroyed his country. Not with the US building the biggest fuck-off Embassy, 104 acres of Freedom, on the banks of the Tigris. The Embassy will be so god-damned huge, it will be completely self-sufficient. Baghdad, Iraq could burn and nothing would change inside Baghdad, USA. Troop withdrawals notwhithstanding, the US isn't leaving Iraq any time soon. Al-Maliki's hands and tongue are tied.
So it was left to a journalist to give Bush a more appropriate send off. The man responsible for untold deaths of Iraqis and Americans flies home scot free, while the guy who threw a couple of shoes at the unimpeachable war criminal gets the Gitmo treatment.
The Iraq Ambassador to the US is already noticed growing resentment towards al-Zaidi's treatment and incarceration. And if the crashing of Boing Boing's post on the virals inspired by his actions are anything to go by, you'd be hard pressed to find an international jury to convict him. Whether you got them to swear on a bible, a Koran or a copy of the God Delusion, the people's court has spoken. Let him go.
Never mind that the insult, like the shoes, went over Bush's head. We don't need any more proof about the Bush mindset. The man is as thick as a Soviet-era condom and about as diplomatic. His own party has disavowed knowledge of him, his country hates him, world leaders snub him. So he then decides that it would be a good idea to have one final tour of his mission accomplishments. Jane Young bitingly sums up that plan.
Not that prime minister of Iraq al-Maliki can afford to snub the man who has destroyed his country. Not with the US building the biggest fuck-off Embassy, 104 acres of Freedom, on the banks of the Tigris. The Embassy will be so god-damned huge, it will be completely self-sufficient. Baghdad, Iraq could burn and nothing would change inside Baghdad, USA. Troop withdrawals notwhithstanding, the US isn't leaving Iraq any time soon. Al-Maliki's hands and tongue are tied.
So it was left to a journalist to give Bush a more appropriate send off. The man responsible for untold deaths of Iraqis and Americans flies home scot free, while the guy who threw a couple of shoes at the unimpeachable war criminal gets the Gitmo treatment.
The Iraq Ambassador to the US is already noticed growing resentment towards al-Zaidi's treatment and incarceration. And if the crashing of Boing Boing's post on the virals inspired by his actions are anything to go by, you'd be hard pressed to find an international jury to convict him. Whether you got them to swear on a bible, a Koran or a copy of the God Delusion, the people's court has spoken. Let him go.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Gumboot terrorists
There are few things more awkward than trying to run in gumboots, but the police getting caught spying on protest groups is one of them. Bill Ralston's right, in that the immediate response to the decade-long spying career of Rob Gilchrist has been somewhat slack. But I think this one's a slow burner. It's not going to go away.
A line was crossed when Gilchrist informed on the Greens. It was very similar to the line crossed in the UK, with a front bench opposition MP arrested and his offices getting raided by police. Parliament is some sort of hallowed ground. The rules of police operate differently there than elsewhere. An immunity of sorts, a suspension of the usual rules applies, in a way that used to operate for churches, universities and maraes. The police, by convention or speaker's ruling, are forbidden from going on fishing trips there.
Another line was crossed when the enthusiastic Rob Gilchrist narked on anti-taser rallies. There's national security and then there's protecting your patch, and the police are now tarred with spying for their own ends. It is every citizen's right to speak out peacefully on any subject. It does not require police permission or agreement. It certainly does not include police informants actively undermining that expression just because the police may disagree with their opinion.
Yet another line was crossed when Gilchrist's police minders, one of them a Brit, didn't give him any parameters on how to mine information. It was open slather on sexual details of activists, political party correspondence, protest planning on anti-taser rallies. Any information, however dubious, is better than nothing. Such a level of intimacy, without just cause, says more about the voyeuristic proclivities of the data gatherers than anything they were hoping to "manage".
And I'm sure Nicky Hager hasn't finished with this by a long chalk. Those emails that Rochelle Rees copied and pasted will be dynamite. Operational details, lines of interest, juicy soundbites of embarrassment spread out over the silly season. And it serves them right. What use is your body armour, your semi-automatic rifles, your tasers, when faced with ridicule? The pen may be mightier than the sword but, as George Bush found out, the shoe can be mighty powerful too.
A line was crossed when Gilchrist informed on the Greens. It was very similar to the line crossed in the UK, with a front bench opposition MP arrested and his offices getting raided by police. Parliament is some sort of hallowed ground. The rules of police operate differently there than elsewhere. An immunity of sorts, a suspension of the usual rules applies, in a way that used to operate for churches, universities and maraes. The police, by convention or speaker's ruling, are forbidden from going on fishing trips there.
Another line was crossed when the enthusiastic Rob Gilchrist narked on anti-taser rallies. There's national security and then there's protecting your patch, and the police are now tarred with spying for their own ends. It is every citizen's right to speak out peacefully on any subject. It does not require police permission or agreement. It certainly does not include police informants actively undermining that expression just because the police may disagree with their opinion.
Yet another line was crossed when Gilchrist's police minders, one of them a Brit, didn't give him any parameters on how to mine information. It was open slather on sexual details of activists, political party correspondence, protest planning on anti-taser rallies. Any information, however dubious, is better than nothing. Such a level of intimacy, without just cause, says more about the voyeuristic proclivities of the data gatherers than anything they were hoping to "manage".
And I'm sure Nicky Hager hasn't finished with this by a long chalk. Those emails that Rochelle Rees copied and pasted will be dynamite. Operational details, lines of interest, juicy soundbites of embarrassment spread out over the silly season. And it serves them right. What use is your body armour, your semi-automatic rifles, your tasers, when faced with ridicule? The pen may be mightier than the sword but, as George Bush found out, the shoe can be mighty powerful too.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Swedish Chef Opera
Oh this is great fun. Muppets doing classical music on YouTube, including Ode to Joy with Beeker and Habenera from Carmen, with a Bork Bork bassline from the Swedish Chef:
Hat Tip Boing Boing.
Hat Tip Boing Boing.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Smells like unemployment
You might think spinning chicken shit into money was a laudable goal, but you'd be wrong there. Over 160 people will be losing their jobs in Morrinsville soon due to the smell of mushroom food. NZ Mushrooms, which uses the compost to grow its crop, has been ordered to close:
[Matamata-Piako Mayor Hugh] Vercoe said a composting site about a kilometre out of town was the root of the complaints, as opposed to the long-established growing operation in town. He said the composting site had been where it is for longer than some of the residents on lifestyle properties nearby.The forced closure comes over a year since an Environment Court precedent that ruled that olfactory pollution is bad. The simpler solution by far would have been to rule against lifestyle properties being owned by townies with delicate noses instead.
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