Peter Howard is Wintermute, mythologist

Trade-Slave

20January2005 [directLink] [myth]

Mentioned on The Corporation: slavery did not end because the market collapsed. It ended because enough people asserted that there is a moral order that takes precedence to the market and to commodification (ie, of humans). But similarly, we cannot claim that environmental problems or human rights abuses will be sorted because the market demands it - it will take enough people speaking out and asserting a moral order.

In all, thought The Corporation a pretty good documentary, and very stylish piece of film-making (with a spookily sci-fi/post-apocalyptic voiceover). Some of the info/propaganda was pretty ridiculous (eg, suggesting IBM complicit in the Holocaust ‘cause their punch-card computers were used in cataloguing prisoners), but there were some worthwhile philosophical points…

Elves Of Valinor Warn Of 'Critical Security Flaw' in Palantir Browsers

16January2005 [directLink] [myth]

at defective yeti

This is genius. Apparently the palantir browsers have (yet another) security hole that allow a remote user to seize control and execute local commands…

four legs good, two legs …

12January2005 [directLink] [myth]

An interesting article on SMH today - talking about communism/marxism and fascism. Good to see someone point out that just because of a failed version of marxism under Stalin doesn’t mean communism=fascism. Some useful explanations in there, and the important suggestion that “New kinds of idealism need to be rethought, not buried.”

Vaguely related - bit scared about the release of Mamdouh Habib from Guantanamo after all this time - not because I fear he’s dangerous, but because it suggests that the US kept him locked up for almost three years without ANY evidence (if they had something at all they’d have knocked together a case easily…!) And it’s rather scary that our government had no problem with that…

Acts of God

04January2005 [directLink] [myth]

some good and some bad in the responses to the tsunami…

I’m very impressed by the fact that Aussies are realising that our Asian neighbours are people too… That seems to be forgotten too often (eg, the earthquake in Bam, or the fact that terrorist attacks happen with terrible regularity in SEAsia, not just when Aussies die). Tim Costello said that he’d expected the disaster to disappear from the news within a couple of days - I’d not have been surprised, but fortunately…

Amazingly the US have acknowledged that aid DOES help fight terrorism. Haven’t heard much out of Alexander Downer - he tended to argue vehemently that poverty/famine &c. were not major causes, now that the States have admitted it, I wonder if he will also…

But what I can’t stand is that the media have jumped at every opportunity to make religious leaders (and Christians in particular) look stupid - they’re presenting the ‘Christian’ response as a claim that the tsunami was an Act of God. Poor (Anglican Dean of Sydney) Phillip Jensen is being dreadfully misquoted - looks like someone (digging for a response) asked him if the tsunami was divine punishment. He worked his way out of that hole gracefully, suggesting that disasters were a sign of God’s coming judgement. Somehow that wasn’t enough, or the media has their grammatical tenses mixed up, and is reporting his claim as some fundamentalist (OT) divine retribution for an as-yet-undiscovered horrible sin by the people of South Asia!