The Concatenate

The Seattle Post Intelligencer has done the unthinkable and actually read through the reims of material made public through Microsoft’s anti-trust trials. As a result they’ve found a gem of an email sent by Bill Gates in anger to his developers about the state of Windows in 2003. It’s well worth a read in full but I loved this gem:

“Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.”

Perhaps even more terrifyingly the hack was able to contact Bill and ask him about the email to which Bill replied:

There’s not a day that I don’t send a piece of e-mail … like that piece of e-mail. That’s my job.

Maybe, just maybe, the public who were paying good money for his products might have liked to have known what he thought of them too?

It also makes you wonder just what is running the show when even Bill Gates can send rockets like this and still nothing ever improves?

Sorry to belt you round the head with so much NY Times stuff today but this one really needs looking at. It’s a look at John McCain’s relationship with god and why it’s not good enough for the nut-bag “evangelicals” who are strangling public life in the USA. Back in 1996 McCain was describing the prayer services he’d lead for the captured and tortured prisoners of war in Vietnam and had this to say about one of his sermons:

“One day I talked about the parable of when they asked Christ whether they should pay taxes and he held up a coin and said, “Render unto Caesar, etc.” My point was and still is that when we were flying in combat, we weren’t doing God’s work. We were doing Caesar’s work. So for us to go to prison and then ask God to get us out was not fair to God, to our religion, to our beliefs and to ourselves. It wasn’t a miracle that sent a SAM [surface-to-air missile] to hit my airplane. It was a guy, a technician at a SAM site.

I think it was important, a little bit for the stability factor, that it wasn’t God who was going to perform a miracle, end the war and bring us home. It was men. It was Caesar. I think the majority of those guys felt the way I did but we just had some, just as people turn to faith healing and that kind of stuff, we had some of that. A lot of times I would pray for strength and I think sometimes I got it. Pray for patience to get through the next minute when things were bad. I just don’t think it’s fair to expect too much out of what is basically not the Lord’s business.”

A decent, reasonable, and theologically sound approach to take you might think? Apparently to the evangelicals it’s enough to brand him as not even a Christian at all.

The debate in the comments on this piece is worth the price of admission too.

Even The Times’ curmudgeonly Stephen Jones liked what he saw when the Wallabies finally clicked and played some decent rugby against France last night on the way to a 34-13 victory.

Finally passing out of the tackle instead of going to ground lie a brain-dead league player. In league it makes sense because you’re guaranteed the return of possession from a completed tackle.

In proper rugby going to ground can be just as dangerous as a pass out of the tackle, but the pass lets your team run against a fractured defence. This might seem obvious, but the dead hand of League has been leading Australian rugby astray this past decade and finally the New Zealand coach is breaking it.

The scrum still needs sorting but if they keep playing like this who knows? Maybe the crowds will come back?

The New York Times has a truly excellent novella length look at the perils of playing the man and not the ball in the blogging game.

Something there for all of us I think.

Well the day of the Democrats has drawn to a close with their last Senators slouching off into the sunset.

A party getting 10% of the vote on a platform of keeping the bastards honest does make me wonder why 90% of the population is so mad keen on bastards.

In the end though Australia seemed to tire of a third party trying to conduct politics as adults.

The infantile tantrums of the Greens seem to be much more satisfying to the self-styled progressives.

Apparently we get the governments we deserve.

I can’t help thinking more intelligent political reporting would have cast the Democrats in a better light.

The Age is reporting on the start of TV sales through the iTunes music store.

I myself am in the middle of downloading season 10 of South Park from them, a process I started on Tuesday night.

The rock solid pause and resume download features are certainly coming in handy.

At $32 it was a bit cheaper than buying the DVDs.

And it means Australians will finally have a reason to buy an AppleTV.

As with all video over internet though, it really shows up this country’s low-grade internet speeds. Sure with a bit of planning it all comes down in the end. But if Koreans don’t have to wait why do we?

Last night the TripleJ Hack program fired the starting gun on a polygamy debate, which the SMH soon picked up.

In their long march to Sharia Law in Australia the Muslim community is now pushing for a recognition of polygamous marriages. Because they’re doing it anyway.

This is the bit of multi-culturalism that they don’t tell you about when extolling the wonders of having a kebab shop around the corner. (And what I wouldn’t give to have one around the corner here on the South Coast).

Polygamy’s great if you’re a powerful and wealthy man, and it’s not so bad if you’re a submissive woman.

But the downside is that once the wealthy men have taken as many wives as they can support it leaves a lot of angry young men who can’t find a date.

Anyway those eggs are long ago broken.

Monogamy’s a cultural relic and has no exclusive place in a multi-cultural society. We really do need to get the family law system functioning to recognise any possible permutation of marriage, rather than just the one our grandmothers understood.

On the bright side the Sharia pushers will be horrified if we open up gay marriage in the same stroke as legalising their polygamous marriages.

It all balances out in the end see?

The Concat yields to no-one in our criticism of the Lara Bingle “where the bloody hell” tourism ads.

It was obvious to anyone with half a brain and their head not up a hooker’s arse sniffing for charlie that selling Australia as a desolate home of foul language would not encourage people to trek around the globe and spend their money here.

The SMH now reports that Kevin Rudd, an early fan of the ads, now has the data to back up the bleeding obvious.

“Tourism figures have also shown the campaign was largely a failure. The number of tourists visiting Australia from the three countries that had most exposure to the campaign - Japan, Germany and Britain - fell in the months following its launch.”

Dropping the F-bomb might be normal in advertising agencies and ministerial offices, but bad language is still an issue for a huge swathe of the potential tourist market.

Which brings us back to what to do with the vast tourism facilities we’ve been building along the coasts of Australia?

At the end of the day we’re a long way to go for most tourists, and we’re very expensive, and we’re not much different or better than anywhere else.

Stop wasting government money on it is our advice. If the operators are so sure of their product let them spend their own money promoting it.

The Terrorgraph is running hard with video of Melissa Batten’s not particularly explosive claims against Belinda Neal MP on A Current Affair last night.

The whole thing would be ridiculous if it didn’t strike such a deep chord with all the little people (and the Pauline Hansonesque Batten is as little as they come) who populate this wide brown land and still believe in quaint relics of a bygone age like telling the truth and not abusing positions of power.

But one can’t help feeling that if Ms Neal was a bit more popular with her own colleagues this would have all gone away by now. As it is she’s a very convenient scrap to throw to the wolves and pretend her behaviour was in some way aberrant.

Something to cheer up your Monday.

The Times has published the results of its competition for the best communist jokes.

Russian humour has a certain wonder all its own.

This is a deeply silly movie. But like all Adam Sandler movies it has some endearing moments and goes to unexpected places.

If anyone can think of another movie which treats both Israelis and Palestinians sympathetically let me know.

In case you missed it “The Zohan” is an Israeli counter-terrorist played by Adam Sandler. Tired of all the killing he escapes to follow his dream of being a hair-dresser in New York.

Palestinians and Israelis in New York instantly recognise him and improbable hilarity ensues.

Along the way Zohan pleasures the old women of the big apple because wrinklies need loving too.

A quite valid point is made (and laboured) about the similarities of the warring parties. Their strange shared passions for humus, disco, and hacky-sack are well explored.

Zohan makes his way through the movie in what can only be assumed is a complete collection of Mariah Carey t-shirts and MC makes a sweet cameo to adoration from both sides of the conflict.

As always Sandler over-estimates his ability to hold a scene. And at times it feels like a really long skit show rather than a feature film.

But it’s got some good old fashioned gross-out giggles and like Sandler himself, it’s basically likeable.

Three stars.

When a band you’ve never heard of have sold 10 million records you do need to pay attention.

And having paid attention, well, I’m not a fan.

This is stupid music for stupid people to pump iron and inject horse steroids to.

Disturbed is not the music of the kids being beaten up at school, it’s the music of the kids doing the beatings.

I honestly wonder how many of the 10 million records sold were to serving or former members of the US Army. I’m willing to bet that the Abu Graib torturers have this stuff in their iPods.

The cover art is reminiscent of Unreal Tournament, a near decade old shoot-em-up game.

You can’t get a real music video off YouTube, instead they have a trailer for the album. Yes that’s right, the album doesn’t have singles out selling it, it has a trailer with a montage.

This hides nicely what an indistinguishable pile of hard rock and driving rhythms this album is.

If you can make out the lyrics then you’ll realise it’s all about being brooding and powerful and destroying your enemies.

Well, there’s a market for it I guess.

One star.

Over on the New Matilda, Ben Pobjie has put the whole Night of the Iguana into context.

“It was so refreshing to see NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca (Italian for “of the Bosca”) and his wife, Federal Labor MP Belinda Neal, kick up their heels and indulge in a spot of good old-fashioned peasant abuse recently at Gosford’s Iguanas Waterfront Bar.”

I recommend it strongly.

Kevin Rudd has announced that he will be going to Beijing after all and is dragging the GG along with him.

“The Prime Minister will be in Beijing between 7 and 10 August and will participate in the Australian Olympic Team’s Flag Raising Ceremony and address the Australian Olympic Team at an Official Team Reception at the invitation of the Australian Olympic Committee. The Prime Minister will also attend a number of engagements in the Games program in support of Australia’s athletes including Shooting, Women’s Basketball, Cycling and Diving events.”

The focus groups have spoken, we’re over Tibet. Also we appear to be in with a good chance of medals in Shooting, Women’s Basketball, Cycling and Diving.