NATIONAL

- HDTV

The Australian Government is making momentous decisions with the assets of the Australian people.  Radio spectrum is a public resource.  As such, it's use should provide a maximum benefit to all, and it should draw a maximum of revenue.  It is not a something with which to pay off political favors, to give to one's "big mates" as a block asset to build a new duopoly.  SPIN would like to see the spectrum broken into the smallest feasible bits, and sold off to the highest bidder.

If we the people want minimal cost for our internet and phones, and reasonably priced TV, we must sell the bandwidth in a free market.

- REPUBLIC

The people of Australia are quickly forgetting their victory over the media and the political spin doctors of the last weeks.  SPIN notes that the forces of evil also seem to be forgetting the rebuff of the people.

Defeating the politicians and media moguls is a lesson that the people will remember at the next election.   The one thing lacking for the people is a central organizing principle.  If that principle has certain qualities, then the bearer will have a good chance at power after the next federal election (due about November 2001).

INTERNATIONAL

- EGYPTAIR

The latest piece of the puzzle has been found.  If it was suicide, let us be glad that the pilot did not think of crashing into Times Square in peak hour.

SPIN believes that air travel is a panacea that has passed it's "use by" date.  Telecommuting and traincommuting should be promoted.  Aeroplanes are dangerous, noisy, smelly and they spread disease.

- CHECHYNA

No one has ever accused the Russians of being slow learners.  A couple of years ago they tried to control the Chechyns by the then approved method of a show of massive force.  Russians were slaughtered.

After watching the pinpoint bombing of Serbia by US forces the Russians finally learned how to use their modern armaments to bring recalcitrant populations to heel.  Chechens are made of less stern stuff than the Serbs, or perhaps they are more intelligent.  It seems that a speedy resolution to the war is close.

As the US has shown, slaughtering a few (well..some?) civilians during pinpoint bombing is an accident of war that cannot be avoided, and it sure seems to bring the other side to the negotiations.
 

This page published 14 November 1999.

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