Thanks to Stewart for pointing me at this beautiful description of why the cuts to public services are founded in bullshit.
Now get back to arguing about immigration, benefit fraud, and abortions while the Tories have their quails eggs on toast.
For a while now I’ve had a “bee in my bonnet” (horrible cliché I know but better than the bug/ass one) about the only battle that matters: rich vs poor.
During our lunch break today a “heated debate” (horrible cliché I know but better than slanging/match one) took place about politics. The cause can be discussed later, but yet again it touched on my main gripe about all politics, in all countries, in all historical periods: we’re all avoiding the real issue, and that is intentional.
In a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is that throughout history there has only been one battle: rich versus poor. Additionally, the rich have taken it upon themselves to divert the attention of the poor from this battle and onto other, less important things. For simplicity, from this point on I’m going to refer to “the rich” as “the thumb”. You could substitute “The Man”, “The Police”, “The Military” or “The Market” there, because they all exist for the same thing: protection of the rich.
It’s also important to realise that “The Thumb” doesn’t include people who earn X hundred thousand dollars a year. As rich as these people are, they’re still under The Thumb – it just affects them less. The Thumb is a class of people whose income is difficult to discern because they have so many ways to hide it.
The important thing to realise about The Thumb is that they only have one job, and they’re very, very good at it: diverting our attention from the battle against rich and poor, to other shit that doesn’t matter.
When do you ever hear about people being angry at the rich?
People bitch about immigration, taxation, socialism, social security and all of the other things that are, financially, a piss in the ocean compared to the amount of money made by The Thumb. Compare the amounts of money that were plucked out of thin air during the GFC and given back to The Thumb. The only people who got hurt were the poor! Poor people were evicted! How does that help anyone at all?
We are all subjected to propaganda every day of our lives ranging from discussions about celebrities, Chilean Miners trapped in a hole, X-factor contestants, to Democrats Vs Republicans. These are all fake – they are distractions from the real battle of rich vs poor. And we go along with it.
33 Miners rescued in [currently Thumb-friendly] Chile. Good for them. But where was the reality TV show showing the devastation of the thousands of people in Pakistan following the floods? Well, they’re only Pakis after all I suppose. Muslims. No 24 hour coverage of thousands of families dealing with their grief. No 24/7 coverage of the poor families who were made homeless even though no-one else could afford to live in their old house either. No-one really cares…unless they are given in-depth details of the problem. But that needs the media. So, as the media is run by The Thumb, this kind of topic gets left out of the schedule.
OK end of rant. Remember, in the words of Faithless: Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction.
My first Quine:
#!/usr/bin/perl $str="dXNlIE1JTUU6OkJhc2U2NDsKCiMgVGhpcyBpcyBteSBmaXJzdCBR dWluZSEKIyBmYXRzcXVpcnJlbC5vcmcvdmVnaGVhZAoKcHJpbnQgIiMhL3 Vzci9iaW4vcGVybFxuXCRzdHI9XCIkc3RyXCI7XG4iLmRlY29kZV9iYXNl NjQoJHN0cik7Cg=="; use MIME::Base64; # This is my first Quine! # fatsquirrel.org/veghead print "#!/usr/bin/perl\n\$str=\"$str\";\n".decode_base64($str);
(thanks to Gary for cluing me in to Syntax Highlighter)
Another lacklustre update:
Some stuff:
But the Internet is awesome, isn’t it?
This afternoon a few workmates and I discussed domain names and whether the internationalization of them was a good thing or a bad thing. Through a convoluted series of arguments I found myself defending a ridiculous point of view: that domain names should be restricted to fewer characters than currently, rather than more.
As stupid as this sounds, it was based on some reasonable arguments, which I won’t go into because they’re clearly ridiculous; but still fun to argue. Also, it’s because I’ve found a much better solution.
During the bus-ride home, I came up with a way to fix many of the problems of the DNS, together with the ubiquitous problems inherent in domain-name registration in one go: get rid of domain names altogether.
Hear me out before you scoff.
While I was mulling this over, it became apparent that not only was this the correct next step, but it was already starting to happen.
It’s probably easier to explain what I’m trying to express by giving real-world examples of how domain names are already being rendered pointless.
But there is a fly in the ointment: HTTP currently gives a great deal of credence to domain-names when identifying websites. For example, a single IP(v4) address may host a thousand websites; the only way the web server knows which site you actually wanted is by the domain name you requested. But, like NAT, this is a workaround for the inadequacies of IPv4. When IPv6 actually comes into play, this need is obliterated. There will be no need for people to know the address of the server to which they are connecting. Already, when you go to google.com, you have no idea, nor any reason to care, which IP address you are connecting to. And why should you care?
The DNS is tightly tied to IPv4, which is on its way out. Let’s ditch it once IPv6 becomes as ubiquitous as it bloody-well should be by now.
People don’t need domain names, they need “links” which can be abstracted as much as you like. URI’s need to stick around, obviously – but they work perfectly well without DNS.
Here is a list of recent things that a decent blogger would have made into something interesting and worthwhile to read:
Last Monday we Americans were off work. Well most of us anyway. In the UK this would have been regarded as a “Bank Holiday”, but over here it’s just called a “holiday”. Yeah, a day off work in the USA is called a “Holiday” and is distinct from a “Vacation” which is what we would call a Holiday. This particular holiday results from “a celebration of the Labor movement.”
Obviously, the rest of the world has a day that celebrates the Labour movement, but it’s in May, and called “May Day”. Any idea why it’s in May? How about some idea why the USA uniquely celebrates the Labour movement in September?
Well, thanks to Mr Fritz, I have learned the answers to these questions, and they’re quite intriguing.
To most Americans, “Labor Day” signifies the official end of summer. If you ask them what Labor day is all about, at best you’ll get some shit about the mythical “Labor Movement”, but more often you’ll hear about barbecues on the beach and the end of summer. There is an added irony to this we’ll discuss later.
In reality the history is a lot simpler, more understandable, and therefore prone to revisionism. It’s also pretty bloody fascinating.
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The first recognition of the Labor Movement in the USA is frequently cited as occurring in 1882, in New York. But it didn’t become a national Holiday in the USA until 1894 when President Grover Cleveland declared it as such. Any quick research on Google will yield this. For example, see what the US department of Labor has to say on the topic of Labor Day.
But there are two astonishing occurrences underpinning these events that are suspiciously absent from not only the standard government documentation, but also from the general American Psyche:
Many people will be familiar with the name “Pullman”, especially in relation to luxurious trains, and this is why: Pullman built trains. Obviously he didn’t build them himself, he hired a bunch of little men to do it for him, but they were his trains. Being a philanthropist, he built an entire town for his workers to inhabit. This was a show town that would prove to the cynical masses how Capitalism was the only way to utopia. Furthermore he insisted that all of his workers live there, because they were worth it.
All went well until 1894 when the company started to notice decreased profits, at which point they had to take drastic measures to keep their philanthropic organisation going. The only possible option was to reduce the number of workers, and then reduce the wages of the remaining workers.
Now, these ungrateful workers started to get the hump. The ones without jobs had no way to pay the rent, and the ones with jobs couldn’t afford the rent (the utopian houses they were obliged to live in carried massively high rents). Their reaction was strange; rather than work much harder to pay for their rent and living, they decided to strike! Talk about ungrateful!
Pullman was rightly angry about this abuse of his good will and wrote to the President: Grover Cleveland. Being a shrewd man with a full understanding of industrial relations, Cleveland sent in the troops. Thousands of them. That would surely sort out the strikers. There was no way this could go wrong. Who could have imagined fatalities occurring?
The perceived leader of the rebellion, Eugene V. Debs, was arrested, tried, and sentenced to custody. However, after such a blatant abuse of the working people in the US, Cleveland stood to take a battering in the election. So, he did what every brave man would have done to maintain his position of power and influence: he awarded the working people of America with a single day off a year.
The upshot of the whole incident can be summarised as
There was another interesting side effect: Debs was not a Socialist when he entered prison; he was simply angered by the injustices of his society. However, during his incarceration he read Marx and became a thorn in the side of the government, and governments to come.
The weirdest twist to this story comes next in the tale of…
Eight years before the Pullman incident, in May 1886, another euphemism took place. Despite its name, it wasn’t an “affair” at all – it has been described more accurately as a “massacre” or “riot” that lead to the rest of the world celebrating the Labour Movement on May 1st. The only country that celebrates its Labor movement on a different day is the USA. Funny old world.
Around the time of the Haymarket Massacre there was a great deal of unrest amongst the workers in the industrial centers of America. There was a movement afoot to limit the working day to eight hours so that workers could be assured of eight hours leisure and eight hours rest. Obviously the employing classes were prepared to do anything to prevent this and used every resource, be it private or public to prevent it. Strikebreakers were shipped in, and tensions flared. The Police, in their traditional role as protectors of the wealthy, were bound to protect the strikebreakers and resorted to gunfire. Two strikers were killed.
The following day a mass protest was called, and the Police attended in large numbers. After the speeches from the leaders of the rally, the Police attempted to disperse the crowd and chaos ensued. A pipe bomb was thrown at the Police which killed one officer and the Police responded with gunfire. Around 60 officers were wounded by the gunfire from their own ranks.
As an indirect result of this event, May 1st became the International workers day. When Grover Cleveland found himself in severe danger of ruining his chances of re-election 8 years later, he decided to create a national holiday in order to appease the workers…but chose September as the month so as to disassociate it from the “other” celebrations in May, which could have evoked unpleasant memories.
What strikes me as the most tragic failure of this movement is that now, despite the typical working day in America being the fair eight hours, fought for by their brave ancestors, the majority of the poor people end up working two eight-hour jobs just to stay alive. These are frequently the same people that vote Employer in the elections. How did this happen?
Sunday is usually the day I spend on the sofa with a laptop and some birds, while M is at work. The day passes surprisingly quickly but I usually end up feeling slightly sad: Sunday sad, combined with a tinge of regret that the weekend has been wasted.
This Sunday I had a day trip to New York City, where East-Anglia-K8 and her sister were on holiday; ostensibly they were there to attend Rock The Bells (which was as spectacularly awesome as it sounds), but they’d never been here before so it was a chance to soak up some juice from the Big Apple.
Now, if you’ve never been to NYC the one thing you need to know is that it is a truly spectacular city. All of the hyperbole and gushing that traditionally accompanies descriptions of the city are utterly and totally justifiable. As a result non-New-Yorkers, most notably Philadelphians, are quick to slag it off. Ignore them. New York is the archetype of canine testes, and the first time you see it in person you want to record every building, person, smell and sound. Like London, the more you get to know it, the more you realise you don’t know and the more bizarre, exciting, and pleasurable it becomes. I love it. Wouldn’t want to live there, but I love it. Apparently it’s a common feeling.
The Megabus has been around in Britain for a few years but I’ve never tried it; it always sounded like a scam. But since it made its way to the colonies, I’ve heard first-hand tales of wonder that imply it’s actually as good as it suggests. And it is! With a single day’s advance booking I got a $22 round-trip from 30th St station to 23rd and 7th in NYC…and each trip was only 2 hours; in a comfortable, air-conditioned, free wi-fi having double-decker bus. The whole trip went like clockwork, including the blissful subway ride, which meant I met K8 and Cass at their hotel at 11am as arranged. And what a hotel! The Hudson. If you want a description, Google it or look at some of the pictures, just know it’s spectacular.
It’s always weird and wonderful to see friends and family from England out-of-context, over here – and always makes me nostalgic. But we had a most excellent day. Even though it was 93 degrees, miraculously the humidity was low and so it was actually bearable! We wandered around, had a row with a bunch of Tottenham-Court-Road-style crooks, went up The Eiffel TowerThe Empire State, had a selection of drinks in SoHo, Greenwich Village and in mid town, and generally had a gay old time.
Despite being a single day, it was so far removed from the normal working life, in retrospect it felt like a week-long holiday.
Nice to be home though. I even got warm homely feelings when I saw Philly on the horizon…weird.
A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues at work was blessed with an idea that can only be ascribed to genius: “maybe a few of us should chip in to buy a sandwich toaster?” This was insightful on many levels, not least of which was that we all frequently found ourselves spending a considerable amount of money buying paninis from the local foodery. After a few seconds of the googel, we noticed that a George Foreman Grill would be even cheaper than a sandwich toaster, and offer some potentially interesting options. So three of us chipped in to buy a pathetically cheap grill. We also decided to collectively buy some ingredients for some proper grilled sandwiches.
If you’ve never had a sandwich full of deliciously poncey cheeses, meats and spices, that is heated on a George Foreman grill, then you will never understand the joy we experience every day of the working week.
Initially, the three of us that decided the communal grill was a good idea brought in a variety of breads, cheeses, lunch meats, mustards and spices. The others regarded us with a mixture of scepticism, and irritation (we tend to dominate the kitchen) but occasionally we would be asked how much a “share” in the operation would cost. So we declared it “The Peoples Grill”, stenciled a hammer and sickle on it, and offered its services to anyone who had ingredients.
And so, lunch has transformed into a beautiful collective celebration of grilled deliciousness. This week we shared:
The brains behind the collective grill also coined a phrase for those of us grillers with culinary aspirations: Fourmets. Looks like we’re going to need a bigger grill.