Author: jhancock20

In this season of greed and avarice it seems that everybody is making lists of what they want for Christmas. In the true spirit of this commercial season who am I to buck the trend? So here it is, my list of what I would ask for if there was anybody with enough money to indulge my fantasies.

BD Player

The Sony Blue Ray format has won the war. However regretable that was we are now stuck with the significantly more expensive format. This of course makes both the players and disks more expensive so that less will be sold and those who do buy them will have less money to buy the less important things such as food and decorations.

None the less a BD player is on the top of my list of “things I really cannot afford and  will probably not get” gifts this Christmas. High def video and audio is definitely the way of the future. I saw some high def at the Sony shop the other day and believe me – it was very impressive.

Both Samsung and Sony make a  BD V2 player for under $500. One should not be too greedy.

Hi Def TV

My old Toshi is rather dated these days. The blacks are rather greyish, only 720p (only!) and a measerly 37″. Actually it is a rather nice TV and is adequate for our needs but one can wish.

This item has to go to the new 200 Hz 1080p Sony 50″ TV.  They seemed to have licked all of the outstanding issues with regards to contrast ratio, rapid movement, black level etc. Of course the new display is required for HDCP (copy protected media on the BD).

Receiver

As with the TV, once you get the player you then need a receiver/amp to decode the high def audio. On DVD the surround audio is comperssed to fit into the old format. It is pretty good as far as it goes but it does have limitations and even with my tired old ears I can hear the difference. I have to say that having good quality speakers and reproductiove elements does somewhat spoil you.

There are a number of high quality receivers on the market at around the $1,500 to $2,000 mark that are more than adequate.

7.1 Speakers

Once you have the above then it really is necessary to fill out the system with the two extra speakers. So two more speakers to match the existing system will do the trick.

Tablet Computer

The tablet ia much underrated form factor. I love my tablet and I often use it as a slate. I occasionally get a slight soreness in my wrist and the different arm movements involved help relieve this. In addition it is extremely convinient to use when watching TV and wanting to look up some reference from a documentary for instance.

The one serious issue is the inadequate video processor and it could be about 1k lighter. The problem being that it is rare to find decent video in a tabletr, given that most of them are oriented towards buusiness users and the embeded video is standard on business machines.

So Santa – if tou are reading this you know where to deliver them.

There has been a growing trend in the last 30 years towards less and less regulation. The philosophy behind this and the many reasons as to why this seemed like a good idea are far too complex for a short blog entry so I will take that as read.

The arguments have gone back and forth only to see left leaning political parties move to the right in order to appeal to the popularist ideas and seen the right leaning parties move even further to the right in order to differentiate. So much so that our last federal election was a competition to see who could move more right. Like a jockeying for the end position on a garden bench.  What is even more interesting is the language of the Dem and Rep candidates in the campaign for US President. McCain blaming the greed of Wall St and Obama blaming the Rep policies. In fact they are both right and both wrong.

Laws serve two purposes – to protect the innocent and to protect the guilty. What! I hear you say – “to protect the guilty”! Well – yes. For instance when immunity from prosecution is granted – who does that protect? I know, laws do more than that and it is an over simplification but for the sake of this argument this is suffucuent. Much of the old regulation was replaced by the oxymoronic “self regulation”. Self regulation means no regulation. This has been proved over and over again but Governments of all persuations still think that they can acheive the same ends by allowing the foxes to look after the chicken coup and save a whole bunch of money into the bargain.

I know that there is more than on contributiong factor in the current financial disaster but this particular situation would not have occured had the US government no been so idiotic as to think that people are not essentially greedy and avaricious. Why is McCain so surprised that  his parties policies allowed the Money Barons of Wall Street to get away with blue murder?  I have to say that OBama’s policies are not much better. Of course if he really did promote a sound and necessary policy to address the fundamental weaknesses in the US at the moment then no way would he be elected. The US has drifted (and was always a little in many respects) too far to the right.

One can only hope that the lessons of a deregulated market will not be forgotten. The lessons of 37 are being learnt all over again, and I suspect will continue to be learnt by successive generations as the diabolical lust for money recurs.

How many times have we heard that chant?

For nearly a thousand years the evolution of our legal and regulatory system has taken place to the point where we have a finely honed system of checks and balances. The overall aim is to avoid anarchy, protect against abuses of power, ensure that corruption is minimised, prosecute the guilty whist the the innocent are protected from punishment. The result is a parliamentary democracy that is second to none in the historical record.

However, one thing we learn form history is that freedom is fragile and it can be lost far more easily than it is gained. Hundreds of years of progress can be lost in a few years of manipulation and abuse.

Tragedy is a fact of life. In western society we like to protect ourselves from tragedy and if we cannot protect ourselves then mythologise it to make it more nostalgic rather than immediate and brutal. We shield ourselves by making it into a TV drama. When it becomes confronting such as the events of Sep 11th we are shocked and surprised. tell me, how does that compare with the half a million mainly women and children killed in the allied incendiary bombings in WW 2 in Germany?

When one person dies in a drowning, or from a rare disease it seems that the whole of society mobilises to prevent that tragedy from recurring. If a few gun shots are let off in an argument in the city then parliament moves heaven and earth to enact legislation to  limit freedom of association. Let us be brutally honest here. This legislation will do nothing but erode our protections and freedoms. What comes next, it is illegal to be a member of the Australian Democrats? (That might not be such a bad thing.) How will this prevent the illegal activity taking place within such organisations? In truth – it will not. The enaction of legislation to inhibit basic freedoms is either the desire of a power hungry autocracy or an admission of failure. There is a case for fine tuning legislation to make it more effective but in general we have enough laws, all that is needed is to enforce them. Often the government thinks that lack of leadership and proper management of governmental responsibilities can be compensated for by legislation. We do not need more laws but better governance.

All we ask from our government is that they do the job they were elected to do. Govern.

One of my photos has been included in an online guide called the schmap, an interactive map featuring pictures of different areas on the map.

You can see the picture here.  Scroll down the “Torrens Lake” and hover over the image and you will see my picture to the right. It is a bit tricky but it is the picture by Yanis_.

It references a photo from my Flikr album.

After the longest heat wave on record we are setting records for the coldest April. Was Hanrahan right after all?

In the mid nineteenth century the author Charles Dickens was so appalled by the living conditions of the poor of England that he became a tireless campaigner for the improvement in living conditions, and especially the health and education of the children. There were many other people who joined the fight for the improvement of the working class children but Dickens had the added advantage that he had a ready audience for his writings in which he highlighted the many injustices he saw. Indeed he himself was sent off to work in a blacking factory as a child so he had first hand experience.

Would it surprise you to learn that over one hundred and fifty years later we have an identical situation playing out in our own country?

A few months ago I was listening to an interview with a woman who was asked by Rotary to tutor 2 Aboriginal teenagers who came from an isolated Aboriginal community. They traveled to the city to live with the woman who under took a 3 month course of intensive tutoring. On arrival they were graded at year one or two. After ten days they had progressed two years. By the time they left they were able to converse in English and to use public transport and read signs. Now it is not as if these teenagers had not gone to school. They had regularly attended a local school. The problem was that there were no teachers a the school, and the assistants had insufficient education themselves to actually teach the children. Once every few weeks a teacher would fly in to take a class or two but that was by and large infective.

When the interviewee was asked how many children she thought were in this situation I was astounded when she replied that in her estimation there were of the order of 20,000. This is the number of Aboriginal children who were unable to gain an education because there were no facilities available to them.

The other situation that reminded me of the plight of Aboriginal  children was that of the caste system in India. Again I was listening to an interview on the radio and the interviewee was saying that the caste system was not an impenetrable impediment but it was an often unsurmountable barrier to education.

It appears to me that there is only one reason that this situation exists. We have allowed it to exist. I was rather pleased that one of the outcomes from the 20/20 summit was the proposal for a national Aboriginal education scheme. However, I am yet to be convinced that the outdated principle of federalism will not once again allow the differing levels of government to blame each other and be the pathetic excuse for doing nothing to the detriment of us all.

If the Aboriginal  problem is to be addressed then it is absolutely necessary to raise the overall educational standard of the Aboriginal children. This will not be addressed by throwing money at the problem willy nilly, not by the federal/state blame fest which we have too often seen. It has to be a nationally coordinated scheme with the will and means to provide a universal education that is available to every other person in Australia, but denied to these people by neglect and disinterest on our part. This is going to cost in budgetary terms but the return will be inestimable.

Or – Does the end justify the means?

One of the principles at the heart of our justice system is that the end does not justify the means. A persons actions are judged according to the law not according to some perceived hypothetical circumstance.

Once you start justifying your actions according to the ends then you are able to justify almost anything. This is the excuse for Guantanamo Bay and the Nazi human experiments for instance.

In this article which talked about the new laws relating to therapeutic cloning contained the following quote from Professor Tom Faunce.

“It’s really not acceptable that theoretical arguments, which have plagued this sort of debate, are inhibiting the development of research that will alleviate the suffering of these people.”

So what he is saying, and many other besides, is that the alleviation of suffering is sufficient justification for therapeutic cloning. This is the classic end justifies the means argument. So in effect he is saying that we have to look at the morality of an issue merely by assessing the outcomes rather than the actual process to reach that outcome. I need no tell you how this argument has been used by scientists in the past to justify many types of research that is now considered unethical. Was the argument against painful and in some instances lethal testing of animals a “theoretical argument”?

The process and the morality of the process needs to be discussed independent of the outcome and to suggest that the moral arguments are “theoretical” and not acceptable is hypocritical narrow and inconsistent.

In fact it is the scientists who are being emotive, theoretical and irrational in this discussion and the moralists are actually on the high ground. You cannot separate morality from science as has been proven many times before.

What we need is an open and intelligent debate on the morality, not confused by the irrelevant and emotive cloud that tends to hide the real issues.

Today we have achieved national prominence for having the longest heat wave for any capital city in Australia’s history.

The proof is here. And this is just the beginning. For reference a heat wave is defined by consecutive days over 35 deg C (95 deg F).

This is the 11th day of over 35 deg C and it looks like we have more lovely weather to come.

If you happen to be in a colder clime spare a thought for us.

I think it is probably the most consecutive days over the old ton (100 deg F) but I don’t know. All I know is that it is darned HOT!

There seems to be a lot of confusion in people’s minds between the concept of culture and religion.

When faced with the decision whether to allow certain modes of dress it can be difficult as in this case. There are the two extremes, we must allow religious freedom regardless, to the opposite position, they must conform to the society in which they find themselves. Obviously most of us would be a little more flexible but where does the balance lie?

First let me dispel a myth, this has little to do with religious freedom. In essence if you look at the fundamentals of religion it is more about the heart than the outward signs. In most instances the outward signs are added by men after the event. Religion begins and ends in the heart so that if you strip all the externals away what is left is the true religion of the person. The external trappings are more to do with culture.
Look at Christianity for instance. Most of the practices vary from culture to culture. Head covering, building structure, priestly garments, beards, sabath, etc etc. All of these are cultural and nothing to do with the heart which is where true religion lies.

The same thing occurs with Moslems. There are many quite diverse practices and these are really nothing much to do with the Moslem religion – they arose due to cultural differences.

So the question changes from religious freedom to cultural freedom. You see we all have religious freedom, that is entirely unfettered. In fact whatever external influences come to bear we can believe what we wish. That is why Christianity prospered under communism. But cultural freedom is an entirely different question.

But a question for another day.

There has been a lot of build up to, and hype associated with the “Sorry” speech that was given today by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Aborigines were flown in from all over Australia to mark the occasion. News and TV services ran live to cover the event. Much discussion and debate has occurred regarding the content and significance. So what do we get for our money?

Apparently the speech – read the entire speech here – was written by Rudd himself. After his acceptance speech I would have thought that someone would have given him some good advice, like “Do not wrote your own speeches”. No don’t get me wrong, I applaud the sentiment and I feel that Rudd will probably be a good leader, but really, he does need some good speech writers.

This is a very ordinary piece of work. Such an occasion calls for vision and statesmanship but all we got was some hack phrases and clichés. I never ceased to be unimpressed with Rudd’s ineptitude when it comes to the English language. I admit, I am not Churchill, nor am I prime minister. I suspect that Rudd may have joined the Bush school of speech writing.