Much like AC/DC

The blog's back in black.

Superego

Here is an excellent short film created for the Ballardian home movie competition.



I can really do little more than add to what was already said. Here on the flat plane of this video we can watch an unconscious battle with Ballard's superego vetoing the demands of his id, what we don't see is the questions asked and the ego rationalising the outcome; that is left to us.

Our new nanny state

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Mike Fitzsimon created and released this cartoon under a creative commons sharealike attribution licence. Right on.

Dr Benway

The lavatory has been locked for three hours solid, I think they're using for an operating room...

Foreign policy hell

What do you do if you can't work and can't go to school, if you have left behind your country, your community, and your career, to say nothing of your dead? Sadly, the answer is: almost nothing. Life as an Iraqi refugee is one of emptiness bordering on erasure."Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off if I'd died in Iraq," Fata told me. "And sometimes I think I did."

The always interesting Foreign Policy mgazine has published this article about the seemlingly endless war the the Iraqi's have experienced and how the humanitarian crisis (to use a well-worn cliche, which is in itself a well-worn cliche) that 2 million of them face as refugees just drags on, one wonders who thinks this war was worth it? If you include the deprivations of the economoic sanctions imposed since the first 'gulf war' it must be close to an entire generation that has suffered. Its hard to concive of over here, I can't neatly conclude this post, like there is no conclusion for the people interviewed in the article but Britain is currently having an enquiry into why they went to war, unfortunately Australia is unlikely to do so, not enough of us have died.
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See also High Value Detainee #1

Head on

The blog will be undergoing some changes in the new year I will be lightening up the display theme and writing some longer posts on thinkers, writers and artists who have inspired me and might do the same for you. I might also get round to sharing some music. So again, if you stop by, please comment; don't be scared I wont hunt you down, or try to be your friend, but most importantly don't be lazy, give something back.

Don't be fooled

When you base your business on the value of a celebrity endorsement and not the actual or at least perceived worth of your products, you might one day suffer:

Two US professors have pinned the loss to shareholders from Tiger Woods' marital infidelity at up to $US12 billion ($A13.65 billion).

Ho Ho HO

The blog on which I saw this image already referenced The Wickerman. Click through for the full sequence.

Just in time for x-mass

Christmas shits me. It's particularly absurd here in the southern hemisphere where all the stock images of sleigh bells, ivy-wreaths and heavy red costumes strike a rude contrast with the parched soil and sticky asphalt. Even converting reindeer to kangaroos for the carol six white boomers doesn't mitigate the cognitive dissonance of shopping for brandy pudding in thongs.



Few things annoy me more than shopping centre Santa's, click through for further proof that letting strangers hold your children is not always a good idea.

They live among us... possibly.