BARVENNON.COM
AUSTRALIAN DIARY

ARCHIVES 1997-2007  --- ARCHIVES 2007 +


DECEMBER  2010.


WIKILEAKS.ch   (Now in Switzerland)

Last month I supported Wikileaks.org spokesman Julian Assange.  By now he is assuming position as a cult hero.  I do not blame him for hiding.  He is totally destroying international diplomacy, and Hillary Clinton is the executive who suffers most.

Mostly diplomacy is for lying to the masses of people.  For instance on reading behind the news it was fairly obvious that the Saudis were Iran's bitterest enemies.  Hence they were most probably friends with Israel.  For the sake of the Muslim constituency the fiction was maintained that Israel (Zionism) was the enemy.   And wikileaks revealed that the Pakistan military wants to take over the elected government.  I am sure that is an open secret around the diplomatic circuit.  But exposure of those (well known to the players) secrets will obviously make foreign leaders more reticent and diplomatic notes more circumspect.

Some of the stuff is really hot.  I would not give a bent nickel for Hillary's chances at the 2012 or 2016 Presidency.  Apparently she ordered her diplomatic staff to collect genetic information on foreign dignitaries.

The fury of Hillary can be measured by the constitutional breaches now being committed.  (I assume that it is a constitutional breach to deprive a person of property without due process?  Internet domain names are private property, and domains including wikileaks.org are being closed without due process.)  Once again, the breaches have been concealed in a cloud of misdirection.  But I suspect that Homeland Security moved against the bittorrent sites to provide legitimacy to their new unconstitutional move to close wikileaks.org.

Even our government in Australia was furious.  Threats have been withdrawn.  But after hearing what then PM Rudd said to Hillary about China and war I am embarrassed to have the man represent me.  The man is a nutcase.  Labour cannot be all bad if they sacked him as PM.  The $64,000 dollar question is, who let him out of the Asylum?

9th December.  This story is developing very quickly.  Some smart lawyer has picked Hillary's strategy, which is to get Assange into the US via collaborator Sweden.  In the meantime Assange has become a cause celebre for the civil libertarians of the world.  The problem is, I do agree with laws that make it a crime when a man uses force to not use a condom, even though consent to intercourse had been freely given.  The bad part will be when Sweden is asked to extradite him to the US.  Perhaps the UK could insist that he be returned to the UK after Sweden?  I notice that the Chinese have decided to kick back at the "Peace Prize" offered to Liu Xiaobo.  Might I suggest that they offer a prize to Julian Assange?

15th December.  Last night about 6.00PM I attended a wikileaks demonstration at the Sydney Town Hall.  There were about 400 demonstrators, a few police and cars, and a couple megaphones and posters, some with Che pictures, a few from the Greens, and the majority from the "Socialist Alliance".  The demonstrators were in the space between the Town Hall and the Cathedral.

At 7.00 PM the crowd were told that a march was not allowed.  A chant started up, (Something like "wikileaks, on the streets")   I counted about 60 police standing shoulder to shoulder on the footpath in an attempt to contain the crowd.

The crowd milled about and then broke through and started North along George St. on the Western footpath.  About King Street the police took someone out of the mob, which managed to cross the street and then East along Martin Place .  Police numbers seemed to have doubled, and crowd numbers have shrunk. The Riot Squad had arrived.

About 100 police finally contained the crowd a few hundred meters from State Parliament House.   Here is an (11 MB) avi of the demo in Martin Place.

21st December.  I must say I am somewhat disconcerted (and I expect Assange might be also) to find that the people who support Assange most volubly seem to be the masses who are normally supportive of the liberal side of politics.   Well tough luck for Liberal politicians.  This should be a lesson on what happens to your constituency when you manipulate them with idealistic words.  Sometimes it is exposed that your actions are not as unimpeachable as you would like your constituency to think.  OOPS!!!


OPRAH

The World's Queen arrives in Australia for a 7 day visit and to produce several shows during that time.  Once again, words fail me in attempting to state my admiration for this person.  My best guess is that her power derives from the fact that she is possibly the greatest listener ever.  People who become great have difficulty maintaining contact with the mass of people because of the sycophants that are attracted to them, and their own delusions of power.  God knows how (btw I am an agnostic) but Oprah seems to retain unerring humanity at all times.  (Or maybe the explanation is mundane, like nothing goes out live, and she has a fantastic editor).

AIRBUS

Since 2006 I have warned anyone who would listen not to travel on Airbus because of inadequate system safety software.  When the Rolls Royce engine had an uncontained failure shortly after Singapore takeoff I thought at first that it might be one of those problems that software.could not have managed.  However in the Australian of 9th December is a note to the effect that an "engine control software upgrade" would predict such problems in future.  This only causes me to restate advice offered in my earlier blog.  DO NOT FLY AIRBUS.

 From the diversity of problems that Airbuses have since had, I suspect that the Airbus aircraft control software must be defective.  That software must be fairly complex, perhaps approaching the complexity of the Microsoft Operating System.  Like Windows, later versions of the aircraft control system are probably built up using code from earlier versions.

Airbus is a relatively new business.  The US aircfaft corporations have been developing their onboard software since computers were invented.  They probably have safety checks in there that none of the current software maintainers are even aware of.

THE NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK

Here is the formula for determining what stance the ALP (Australia Labour Party) will take on any issue.  Pose two questions.  Score 2 points for YES, 1 point for "Neutral" and 0 points for "NO".  If the answers score three points, then it will probably be policy.  Otherwise, it will not be policy.
 If the answer to both is "YES" (i.e. 4 points) then it will become policy, and the electorate can go F**K itself.  Cases where this rule applies are the BER(3), the Batts(3), and the NBN(4).  On the local (NSW) level, the refusal to sell the power stations is a prime example.  The reason why we do not have cheaper books (proposed abolition of the local publishing rule) is that although it was YES to Q2, unfortunately somebody realized that it might hurt a few hundred union jobs. (so score = 2).


MAIL comments