Pete Green

I wasn’t keen to write anything about the National Student Strike, mostly because I figured that it was a no win situation; no matter which position I took, my comments would either seem jaded and cynical or I would be associated with a group of people who seem to think that students are early 20^th century coal miners. Then I realised that’s not a no win game, so here are the reasons yesterday’s student strike, at least in Victoria, was an atrocious waste of everyone’s time.

Let’s start with the basics that have been doing the rounds on social media for the last couple of weeks. The idea of a strike is to deprive your employer of your labour in order to pressure them to appease your demands, it is and has been for centuries an effective tool for employees and labour unions in workplace bargaining situations where negotiations between employers and employees have broken down. But if you think really hard about your relationship as a student with your university, you’ll realise that you’re not an employee but what is known in business as a ‘consumer’. The university offers a product (courses), which you consume. The correct term then for what didn’t really happen this week is a boycott, but generally speaking that strategy works better when the business you are boycotting is impacted in some way by the boycott. Which the university, to whom you have already paid your fees this semester, is not.

I’d like now to move on to timing. Budget day certainly seems to be the right time to protest funding cuts, until you realise that it’s unlikely the government is still finalising budgetary policy six hours or so before the treasurer stands up in parliament. “But Pete”, I hear someone cry, “it’s not about changing budgetary policy, don’t be silly, that’s a ridiculous target to set for a student protest”. Well, anonymous and fictional objector, if you want me to miss a whole day of classes and study in a week when I, like many students, will submit more assignments than I will have hot dinners, you better have some lofty fucking ambitions. “But Pete!” shouts the part of my brain that realises opposition is necessary to the continuation of this article, “it’s about grabbing media attention, letting the government know that we’re not going to stand idly by while they bankrupt the future of education, and stuff.” To that I would point out that Saturday is a slower news cycle than Tuesday, during which media outlets are more actively looking for content, which would be more favourable conditions in which to compete with the big stories of the week. Also there are no classes on Saturday.

I have deliberately left discussion of the execution of the protest for last because I’m not one for eating dessert before dinner and frankly this magnitude of clusterfuck is the intellectual equivalent of a wedding cake made entirely out of jelly and donuts.

The main aspects you need to consider when organising a protest, or any event really, is how you plan to publicise it, and just how much abuse you want to scream at people who disagree with you, and how many building-wide evacuations you are willing to cause in an ill-considered and panicked attempt to drum-up more support. In the case of yesterday’s protest the answer to these central questions seem to be ‘if it was good enough for Woodstock it’s good enough for us’, ‘there can never be enough’ and ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, wink.’

There is no excuse in the era of social media for not letting people know what you’re doing. Yet on Tuesday afternoon when I tried to find out how many people had turned up in the city I couldn’t find any information, mostly because I wasn’t really sure who was organising the protest, a situation that wasn’t easily remedied by reading any of the handbills that seemed to be the primary mode of communication favoured by this particular protest. ‘Cause fuck the internet and the environment right fellas?

Obviously some people involved in the protest felt that getting their message across was a bit of a weak suit as well, so they decided to get a microphone and stand in the middle of the Menzies lawn screaming at no one. Stunned by the lack of response to this tried and true campaign tactic it is alleged a member of the socialist alternative activated one of the smoke alarms in Campus Centre to try and force people onto the lawn. Apart from the fact that having the fire brigade come round costs the university a reasonably large amount of money and the protest was against taking money from universities, I’m not convinced that making people think there’s a fire and then surprising them with a socialist alternative rep yelling at them through a megaphone is a winning tactic. I’m not saying I’d definitely prefer to burn to death but I think I’d like to have the freedom to explore my options.

Which neatly brings me to my final point. Choice.

If you want people to come to your ill thought out, pointless and in some ways destructive protest, that’s fine. But if some people decline, those people are not your enemy, and definitely don’t deserve to be treated like they’re betraying some fictional industrial action or have abuse yelled at them through megaphones. Apart from the obvious incursions of basic human decency, it seems to suggest that you think calling someone a right wing bitch, or telling them they don’t give a shit about their education will change their mind about joining your protest. If I didn’t chip in some loose change for the Salvos and the old gent with the tin started hurling abuse, I doubt I’d turn around and start franticly looking for change.

Pete Green

Tomorrow will mark the first student general meeting in several decades for Monash University’s Clayton Campus. The meeting will address the controversial cuts being made to university budgets around the country. As a student of politics and history at the aforementioned campus I can proudly say that I will not be attending.

It’s not that I am apathetic about the cuts to university funding, no liberal democratic government who claims to have the best interests of its people and their future at heart should be taking money away from education at any level, even if it is supposedly aimed at propping up another area of the education system. The idiocy and short-sightedness of what the government is currently doing should be obvious to any cognisant person.

So why am I not standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my down-trodden fellow students to demand an end to the governments jack-booted tyranny? Because the people who organise these meetings, who take it upon themselves to represent us as a student body, would not see any hint of hyperbole in the previous sentence. These are the people who have been protesting against the instillation of security cameras, not on the entire campus but in a formerly cooperative vegan restaurant for almost a year, to no affect other than convincing me that they must be doing something seriously illegal in the back-room. Why would you possibly be against security cameras? If you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, and if the university really uses them to monitor your “subversive activities” or steal your lentil curry recipes, take them to court like grown-ups. If I was ever happy with these people representing my views, that time was ever so many lecture-interrupting rants, patronising flyers and pointless election campaigns ago.

The paranoid, self-obsessed, hyper-sensitive mutterings of the student political movement are as constant as they are detached from the life of the average student, or the plane of reality that student inhabits.Their presence in important political debates such as this one removes student support and lends the entire exercise the same sense of entirely futile effort that accompanies an intervention for Lindsay Lohan. If they manage to round up the 300 students required to form quorum tomorrow then power to them, but given the 40-strong attendance of this morning’s storming of the university admin building, I don’t think I’m putting myself out on a limb when I promise to greet such an event by digesting my hat.

Zhigen Lin

One traditional question asked by potential chess learners is: “Why should I play chess?” I believe the answer to this question is relatively straightforward. There are a variety of benefits to playing and studying chess that are relevant to players of any age. There are the universal benefits in improving logical reasoning, balancing long and short-term planning, and developing patience. There are also some documented age-specific benefits such as social inclusion and improved mathematical ability for youngsters. Chess is also thought to slow the onset of dementia in older players. These benefits are clear and obvious enough that Armenia, India, Turkey, Norway and several other countries have added chess to the educational curriculum, while many more countries feature optional chess clubs at various levels of education.

For me, a more interesting question than the one I posed previously is “How does chess relate to life?” Although some strong players would disagree with me, I’d say that there are quite a few examples where concepts in chess are adaptable to real-life situations.

I’d like to start off the concept of a ‘downward spiral’. Perhaps the most common example of a downward spiral in chess is a player first making a small mistake which leads onto a larger mistake down the track.

The initial mistake does not ruin his position, but does make his job harder. The player repeatedly and silently reprimands himself over this mistake for the next little while (e.g. over the next few moves he says to himself “You fool! Why did I make that stupid move earlier?”) and he loses self-confidence. As a result, the player will become less alert and this will often lead to an even larger mistake that actually ruins his position. Hence, the game will lead to an undesired result.

In comparing this phenomenon to daily life, a typical example would be a person who, still frustrated about something that happened earlier in the day, loses their temper with someone on an unrelated issue.

Though I don’t think we can fully nullify the effects of the downward spiral, by being aware and occasionally reminding ourselves of its existence, we can lessen its effects. I believe that a person who admits they have this problem and reminds themselves to ‘avoid the trap’ will experience a considerable improvement in productivity.

You would probably be able to find discussion of concepts such as the ‘downward spiral’ in a psychology textbook. However, most members of the public are not psychology students and being taught these notions via a game is a much more accessible and enjoyable method.

My second and final example for this article will be a rather long one. Firstly, I’ll discuss some basics to chess: there are three phases to a game of chess – the opening, the middlegame and the endgame, although the borders between each are sometimes hard to define. Beginners often memorise ‘opening traps’, which are designed to provide checkmate straight in the opening or at least to render the opponent virtually defenceless in the middlegame or endgame.

Consider a player who spends an enormous about of time memorising opening traps. While he has put the hard work in, he will eventually find that the area he has put his work into has been misguided and this will hinder his chess in the long run. Opening traps are a quick fix for a player that does not have a sound game – it’s sort of like taking steroids to reach your short-term goals faster. Or take a different analogy: you must lay enough concrete foundation before trying to build your house or skyscraper on top. If you attempt to construct the building first, it may stand for a little while, but will eventually crumble due to its lack of foundation.

At some point, the player will have to ‘backtrack’ and learn all the key knowledge he missed, such as positional/strategical skills, an important set of skills which normally focus on a long-term picture of the game, even until the endgame where there are few pieces left on the board. In fact, one of the most successful chess books of all time was written for players who need to ‘backtrack’ due to their missing foundational knowledge.

Another essential area that is missed by opening-obsessed players is the endgame. Endgames are the final phase of a chess game where there are often still a significant number of pawns left for both forces, but only a handful of other pieces left. The 3rd World Champion José Raúl Capablanca, known for being able to convert miniscule advantages, advocated learning the endgame before “everything else”.

American International Master Joshua Waitzkin considered that the studying of the pieces in isolation allows players to appreciate the full potential of those pieces and to better coordinate their entire forces in other phases of the game.

(As a side note, lack of piece coordination is a problem commonly found in beginners. They know their queen is the most mobile piece, so they move it out at the beginning and shuffle it all over the board. However, having one piece on a rampage near the start of the game and without any support rarely achieves anything useful.)

In my opinion, while this “building a strong foundation” idea is a relatively insignificant concept compared to the commonly heard principle that “practice makes perfect”, I believe it to be a useful nuance to keep in mind.

Phil Peters

The National Broadband Network debate seems to have quickly escalated into a “he said/she said” battle of false figures and meaningless rhetoric, so the present situation is not only difficult to read, it is also almost impossible to claim to know the “right” answer. However, it seems that the passing of Margaret Thatcher came at a curious time in the course of this debate, because as many of you will know, Mrs Thatcher was a big proponent of the “just good enough” approach when it came to government spending, and it seems as though the Lib’s plan for the NBN is in the same vein.

As I mentioned before, the debate between the two major parties’ NBN plans has become somewhat of a pissing match, but really at the core of the proposals is not a difference in “the vision for Australia”, a difference in ideologies. The Liberal party believe that discarding the “perfectly good” current copper wiring system is unnecessary, and simply upgrading the part of the network will be sufficient to keep most Australians’ internet ticking over. The Labor party believe that now is the time to install a new fibre system capable of delivering faster speeds and potentially longer-term stability, but at a greater cost.

Now it’s true that the Labor NBN is a costlier short term investment, especially in the “we must have a budget surplus because……reasons” era of politics, but many believe that the Liberal NBN plans could end up being costlier in the long term anyway, economically or otherwise. The copper wiring that has been in use for over half a century is slowly but surely degrading and will need constant maintenance until eventually it will need replacing. The argument that by that time, fibre technology will be cheaper to implement is valid, but even if the theoretical mountain of money can be saved by that time, it seems like a “save a penny, lose a pound” outcome.

Australia is already behind the rest of the developed world in terms of both internet access and speed, and the highest possible speeds that the Liberal party could promise by 2020, up to 100mbps, is already being surpassed in America where Google’s own experimental fibre network is already delivering speeds of 1gbps. That’s 1000mbps, or 10 times the theoretical Liberal NBN speeds. And let’s not forget that “theoretical” government plans rarely deliver their “theoretical” peak. The Labor party on the other hand has the upper hand in the theoretical speed department, and as fibre is basically an entire new system it too can be upgraded as needed moving forward.

As you can probably tell I am more of a fan of the Labor NBN plans, but I can see the merit of the Liberal plan too. However it seems to me that the Liberal party’s plan would have been revolutionary five or ten years ago, but greatly underestimates the needs, and desires, of the public. The internet is one of, if not the most used and most important part of the every day lives of the Australian people, and seeing that Australia is in the favourable position that it is compared to other countries economically, now seems like the perfect time to invest in a technology that can tangibly help a majority of Australians. Despite the higher economic cost compared to the alternatives offered, it seems to be the opinion of many industry leaders that the cost of not having it would be greater.

Peter Green

Ah student politics, where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. Until you insult the dead to impress your friends and someone picks up the phone the the Herald Sun. I think the most bizarre thing to emerge from yesterday’s motion celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher, passed by the University of Melbourne Student Union, is the surprise that seems to exist among those who voted for it that there might be some kind of back-lash against insulting the memory of an extremely elderly stroke victim with two living children and several grandchildren. They’ve since tried to have their names taken out of reports and none of them have spoken to the media. But surely the point of vowing to metaphorically dance on the grave of Britian’s first female Prime Minister was to gain some form of media attention, presumably because you feel that Andrew Bolt has been having a hard time sounding morally superior recently and you thought he deserved a freebee. And it’s all well and good to say that the Herald Sun are overreacting, but apart from the fact that for once that isn’t true, what the fuck did you expect? You thought Mr. Bolt was going to roll out of bed this morning, read some texts and laugh it off as ‘boys being boys’? How could you possibly do this and not see a monumental, multi-media cluster-fuck in your very near future?

Let’s be honest, as students, we don’t expect much from student unions. At Monash I’d be happy if I heard one thing from the union that wasn’t about the ongoing war with a catastrophically unprofitable vegan restaurant or how they were unable to secure any kind of reduction in costs, in any area, on anything. But it seems to me that the University of Melbourne Student Union is perhaps the finest example of what can be achieved when twelve people decide to put aside their political differences and just do their level best to make young, politically interested people look like twats.

Let’s put aside for a moment what they actually did, except to note that it was about as far from the purview of a university student union as it is possible to imagine. As I mentioned before, I don’t go to school at Melbourne, but I know a few people who do, and from time to time I’ve heard them mention that it’s not a perfect utopia of educational excellence in which the needs of every last student are perfectly fulfilled. Given that sub-par state of affairs with regard to the ultimate goal of any student union, what makes this band of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing morons think that they should be doing anything other than tying to improve the university for the students? Anyone would think that they had done literally all there is to do, not only as politicians but as people; climbed every mountain, forwarded every stream, and somehow needed to fill five minutes at the end of a meeting, at which point someone said ‘well I guess we’ve never taken a cheap-shot at a dead person…’.

There are many reasons to dislike Mrs. Thatcher, just as there are many reasons to like or dislike any political figure, but, as has been pointed out at length by the University of Melbourne Liberal Club, she was a democratically elected leader who was loved by a great number of her people, and deserves all the respect due to a person of that station. Or at the very least the respect any decent human being would afford the death of an elderly woman who has left behind a large grieving family. Student politicians are fond of lamenting the inability of professional politicians to put aside their petty squabbles and do what is right for the nation, but our leaders transgressions on this front pale in comparison to a union that seems incapable of acknowledging that political figures are deserving of basic human dignity.

Peter Green

Cody Wilson, founder of Defence Distributed

There has been a lot said and written about gun control in the US in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre and a spate of other mass shootings in 2012. However Defence Distributed, a small firm based in Austin Texas, and its founder Cody R Wilson, might have found a way to completely curtail the arguments for stronger gun control being made by many in the US political class and notably President Obama. Mr. Wilson and Defence Distributed are using 3D printing technology to print (among other parts) lower receivers for the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The same gun that was used at Sandy Hook by Adam Lanza.  The lower receiver is the component that houses the trigger mechanism, and to which all other components of the gun; barrel, stock, magazine etc, are attached. For this reason, this part alone is considered to be a firearm under America’s 1968 Gun Control Act. Making printable patterns for this part and distributing them to people with 3D printers means that anyone with the correct technology and an Internet connection can download and print a lower receiver. You can then order the other parts of the rifle in the mail (as these are not regulated because they would be useless without a lower receiver) and assemble the finished product literally without needing to leave your bedroom.

There are several problems with this process at present. Despite recent advancements in Defence Distributed’s production and design process that it claims (and has demonstrated on their YouTube Chanel) mean their parts will now not fail under the stresses of firing, printed receivers have previously failed after a relatively small number of shots; a prototype demonstrated for Vice failed after 27 rounds. Magazines and other components have also been problematic. However the process is still in its infancy, as is the printing technology on which it is based, and both the design process and the materials that can be used in the printing process are still being developed, and are improving on a daily basis. Defence Distributed had also faced legal problems in distributing their lower receivers, but have previously attained a license that allows them to make and sell fire-arms legally. Despite this, Mr. Wilson is not currently, and apparently does not plan to, make his receivers commercially available, but will instead distribute the pattern for their manufacture free of charge online.

Cody Wilson fires an AR-15 equipped with 3D printed compontents.

This is because Mr. Wilson is not attempting to turn a profit, but rather to make a political and technological point. Even if his components fail in a relatively short time, they can be made from around $20 worth of raw materials with a printer currently worth around $1000. I say currently because if New York Times technology reporter Nick Bilton is to be believed when he says that there will be one of these printers in most homes in the next ten years (see below), then that seems like a price that is only going to move in one direction. If this turns out to be correct, then by 2030 we could be living in a world where 3D printable files are consumed and traded in the same way that MP3 files are at present. This is a version of the future that Mr. Wilson not only believes in but welcomes as a new dawn of unregulated information and goods similar to the birth of the Internet. And he is absolutely, perhaps worryingly right.

At present, though the Internet can get you many valuable things: music, films, images and even tools that one can use for cyber terrorism without and sometimes in spite of government regulation, it is more difficult to obtain regulated physical goods. This is because while software and computer files can travel anywhere in the world without anyone’s approval and remain mostly undetected, freight and shipping companies or the physical transportation of goods by other means are a necessary part of transporting physical goods around the globe, and this enables most governments to reasonably effectively regulate the goods that are bought and sold both within and beyond their borders.

However, in a world where everyone has a 3D printer, there is no reason why gun components, even entire guns, accessories and attachments could not be proliferated in the same way that music, movies and TV shows are now. While it might be easy at the moment for government agencies to keep tabs on the trafficking in down-loadable AR-15 lower receivers, you can see on DEFCAD, (a distribution site hosted by Defence Distributed which is currently one of the only sources of templates for weapon parts) the demand and supply are extremely low. At present the market is limited to a small group of young people who have adopted the technology, a large part of this group are also ideologically opposed to what Mr. Wilson is trying to prove: that this technology makes government regulation of not only guns, but all forms of deadly weapons, as well as a huge and perhaps limitless number of other goods, completely meaningless.

Do you remember that ad that used to run before the main feature on DVDs that reasoned that your shouldn’t download movies because you wouldn’t steal a car? What if you could download a car? It probably won’t be terribly complex, but an entirely mechanical car with no electronics involved in the moving parts should be fine, I drive one, they’re lovely. I’m not sure I’d want to drive one made entirely out of plastic but I’m sure I’d get used to it. What we are talking about here is a revolution in the way people do business, the way we look at ideas like copyright and intellectual property, the ability of the government to control what we do, what we have access to. What people like Cody Wilson see in 3D printing is that it puts the means of complex production entirely in the hands of individuals. Where previously barriers of technical skill and industrial capability stood between the population and the production of high-end manufactured goods, this technology means that almost any object can be manufactured with minimal outlay and absolutely no effort in your own home. Viewed in that context, while perhaps they are a worrying example, the proliferation of fire-arms barely even rates a mention in what could well be a global shift in the way our society operates and interacts with business and government.

Vice’s Documentary

Nick Bilton’s New York Times article

Defence Distributed and their YouTube Channel

Luci Leptos

The job of trailblazing guinea pig isn’t one people generally want to put their hands up for, especially when the person in the lab coat is a teenager with a Twitter account. This, however, didn’t seem to faze the Federal member for Kooyong, Mr. Josh Frydenberg.  Since taking office in 2010, this Liberal MP has penned and presented a multitude of opinion articles and speeches, sticking to his website’s masthead of striving “to bring a passionate and energetic voice to the important challenges we face”; this instance was no exception.

Last week I promised (read: prophesized) crocodiles and cannibals, and my interview with Mr. Frydenberg didn’t disappoint. It is here we had our first crocodile sighting; the Clean Energy Act or, as it’s commonly known, the Carbon Tax. A contentious and prickly issue since its instigation in 2011, it has grown and matured into what is now an invaluable vote-winning tool, with quite a few more teeth. It’s not surprising then that it poked its head above the murky waters of the political swamp. The scaly reptile appeared in this interview as the one piece of legislation Mr. Frydenberg would most like to see turned into shoes. Why? In a time when the nation dances on the precipice of economic downturn, the rising price of carbon is simply “too much of an impost on families”, and this government’s tax an unreasonable size.

I suggested that perhaps a carbon tax, of some description, as an interim solution could be justified; at least until a proper discussion surrounding alternative energy sources (particularly nuclear energy) is held. It was met with a swift and adamant ‘no, no, no, definitely not’ sort of response; the debate on nuclear energy must be reopened now.  With around forty percent of the Earth’s retrievable uranium deposits in our own backyard, why isn’t nuclear energy being utilized in Australia? Safety appears to be the central issue. The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant has brought back into light the risks involved but we don’t have to look far to see the accident has deterred few nations. In France, nuclear power provides over 75% of the country’s total electric power while the United States is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, with twenty two percent of its uranium coming from Australia. Figures such as these fuel the clean energy debate and as it continues to heat up, I have no doubt this particular issue will be making regular appearances in this column.

Not reptilian or cannibalistic, but certainly interesting is this MP’s dream piece of legislation. It’s probably not what you’d have thought, unless what you thought was the reinstating of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) . Officially abolished on the first of June last year to make way for the Fair Work Building Commission (FWBC), Mr. Frydenberg suggested the only reason for its closure was the ALP’s personal vendetta against the Liberal Party; a childish move. The FWBC, with diluted powers from its predecessor, has seen the number of industrial disputes has increased almost two fold since the time of the Howard government, hindering the efficiency of domestic industry.

In times of economic uncertainty, a drop in productivity could have potentially disastrous consequences for the many Australians, and their families, employed by the sector, both directly and indirectly. It is for this reason, that being the sheer number of people whose livelihoods are dependent on Australian industry, that the ABCC was so vital to the proper upholding of construction laws, and reasons for its unnecessary closure juvenile and immature.

An interesting and thought provoking first interview and I thank Mr. Frydenberg enormously for his generous donation of time and insight. Next week I’ll be continuing the safari with Federal member for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer.

Luci Leptos

Ladies and gentlemen, another election year is upon us.

Over the next few months you can expect to be seeing a lot of, and hearing a lot from, Julia and Tony; plastered across front pages, sandwiched between Harvey Norman and life insurance ads, and appearing in a few unflattering caricature cartoons. But what about the rest of the team?

There are 150 members in the House of Representatives, and 76 Senators in the Senate – 226 in total-  the vast majority of which are silent.  This silenced majority are our little-known backbenchers, those who view politics from ‘row ZZ restricted view’. The most you’ll  see of one will be in a campaign tent outside your local supermarket preaching the party line and handing out a pamphlet or two. ‘From the Backbench’ will be a column dedicated to exploring what goes on in the minds of these bleacher occupants in modern politics.

The late Bert Kelly, a recalcitrant backbencher, will be most remembered for helping to end rampant protectionism in Australia – with little power and fewer friends. His regular column Modest Member (1969-1985) showed the country that backbenchers aren’t merely party foot soldiers, but are able to bring about genuine changes to the fabric of the country, even though his own Leader, John McEwen, witheringly observed that Bert had much to be modest about.

So, twenty eight years after the close of Bert’s column, can we find Australia’s next Modest Member? Have no fear, there won’t be a Hollywood round, viewer voting or any uncomfortable group numbers, the idea is this;

Each week, a different backbencher will be invited to discuss their standpoint on an issue concerning their specific area of interest, and in addition, will be asked two disarmingly simple questions:

If you could pass one piece of legislation what would it be?

If you could repeal one piece of legislation what would it be?

Littered with crocodiles and a few miniature cannibals, these responses, with any luck, will reveal quite a lot- probably a lot more about our backbenchers, and their prospects for promotion, than their maiden speeches (which are mostly written for the history books.)

I thought of starting this quest with one of our immodest backbenchers – The Hon Kevin Michael Rudd.  But I don’t think I could contain him to two pieces of legislation. Instead, I think I’ll start the hunt in my own backyard with the Federal member for Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg MP.

Stay tuned.

Pete Green

Watching Sarah Palin deliver her speech at CPAC last week I was genuinely shocked that there is a section of any first world nation that could see this person as anything other than a vaguely tragic joke.
Let me illustrate my point. The speech included: a shout-out to the birther movement, a joke about her boobs, a joke about President Obama using a teleprompter too much which she read off a teleprompter, accusations that Washington is turning into reality TV just over two years after the final episode of ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ went to air on TLC, attempts to draw a direct link between the Obama administrations supposed targeting of ‘job creators’ and the rising price of petrol, complaints that politics has become an eternal campaign from a woman who now has a permanent national bus tour and refuses to rule out running for president at any future election, a declaration that what modern America needs is Margaret Thatcher, an assertion that if you believe the constitution of the United States then there are no “Hispanic issues, or African American issues, or women’s issues, there are only American issues” and a description of conservative objectives as ‘changing things for the better’ (the joke here is that the Encyclopaedia Britannica defines conservatism as a political movement that emphasises the importance of retaining traditional institutions and practices).
That’s honestly only scratching the surface. There was also prop comedy involving a big gulp, a super-sized soft drink famously outlawed in New York by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a ban which was quashed by courts shortly after its implementation). And they went mad for it.

The natural thing to do when confronted by something that defies your comprehension is to equate it to something closer to home and more understandable. The obvious candidate here is Pauline Hanson, a similarly outspoken, female, hard line conservative whose relatively short period of moderate political power lead to a to a short period of disproportionately large celebrity. But Hanson was largely seen for the high-functioning sub-human moron that she was, she gained very little credibility and quickly became a laughing stock before retreating into the shadows, only to garner the occasional page three story for similar reasons to any other washed-up celebrity.

For Palin however, the fall from political significance has not been met with a coinciding fall in popularity, or, strangely, political influence. Blessed with a huge following that will believe literally anything they see on Fox News, Palin has been able to make use of her connection with the afore-mentioned national broadcaster (including three years as a contracted contributor) as a massive soap-box for her brand of folksy, ‘hockey mum from Alaska’ social conservatism, while railing against the supposed media conspiracy to silence her and those she agrees with. Her whole existence is a series of bizarre contradictions that are blatantly obvious to anyone with any formal education or TV viewing habits that extend beyond the likes of ‘Fox and Friends’ or ‘The O’Rielly Factor’, but for this reason don’t bother Palin fans in the slightest. The designer clothes and obvious wealth clash with the talk of the American heartland and a struggling middle class that Palin can appeal to and sympathise with without the need o provide any answers for because she isn’t a politician.

Here we arrive at the centre of the enigma wrapped in a riddle that is Sarah Palin. Her speeches make her look like a politician, she talks like she’s running for office, she gets funded like she’s already there, but at the end of the day everyone knows that she is none of these things, so the complete lack of constructive input is excused. She is allowed to complain about everything but fix nothing, blame everyone else and accept no responsibility herself. Her voice is something warm and comforting that the die-hard fans of that particular brand of American conservatism can huddle around and use to block out the sound of their impending political doom that ironically comes in the form of increasingly dominant minority voting blocks that Palin says politicians need not treat as different from some kind of imagined singular American identity.

Picture Credit: Huffington Post

Pete Green

In light of Senator Stephen Conroy being compared to six of the world’s worst mass murderers and despots on the front page of the Daily Telegraph, we’re going to take a look at how the local boy stacks up against the international competition in a number of key statistical and performance indicators. If the Telegraph is right, stats should shed some light on Conroy’s despotic credentials.

Conroy vs. Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin gets out to a flyer by clinching the important Better Middle Name (BMN) category over the much more conventional named Stephen Michael Conroy. With somewhere between 3 and 60 million estimated victims under his leadership and a diplomatic record that includes making a formal agreement with Adolph Hitler against what might be considered ‘the forces of good’, it’s also hard to make a case for Conroy getting anywhere near Stalin in any category relating to mass murder or inciting global conflict, which are both crucial areas. Further wins to Stalin in Facial Hair (FH), Extent of Personality Cult (EPC), Populations Starved into Submission or Slaughtered (PSS/S) and Time Spent on Loosing Side of Global Conflict (TSLSGC) put a win for Conroy out of reach. Overall, a convincing win for the man in the moustache.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 1

Conroy vs. Mao

Blamed with starving between 15 million (Chinese government estimate) and 43 million (unofficial estimate) of his own people to death through the “ambitious agriculture reforms” of the Great Leap Forward, Mao starts what turns into a bit of a white wash over the murder-adverse Conroy by clinching both the Mass Deaths (MD) and Most Depressingly Boring Reason for Mass Deaths (MDBRMD) titles. Mao then steam-rolls Conroy in Total Number of Wives (TNW), Enduring International Territorial Disputes Caused (EITDC) and Number of Communist Parties Founded (NCPF) facing little competition, to clinch the win.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 2

Conroy vs. Castro

As the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer who turned away from his comfortable but emotionally unfulfilling upbringing and found his voice at the University of Havana, Castro storms out of the gate taking Life Story Most Ironically Suited to Become a Feel-Good Hollywood Movie (LSMISBFGHM) and keeps the good times rolling by sweeping Longest Time as Head of International Anti-Imperialist Organisation (LTHIAIO) through his time at the Non-Aligned Movement, Total Mass of Beard (TM-B) and Revolutions Lead (RL). A big win for the Fidel “The Crisis” Castro.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 3

Conroy vs. Kim

Kim Jung-un, as “Supreme Leader of North Korea”, takes the early lead, in what is becoming somewhat of a pattern, by smashing the “Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy” in Most Badass Title (MBT). However due to MX’s ‘Naughty vs. Nice Korea’ shtick during the Olympics, Conroy finally gets some points on the board by scoring lowest in Number of Times Mocked in Print Media that is Distributed for Free and Mostly Used as Bedding by Homeless People (NTMPM-DFMUBHP). Despite drawing close, Conroy gets blown away on the Potential to Incite Global Conflict Index (PIGCI) and Disregard for Welfare of Peasants (D-W(P)). A closer-run thing than most but still no cigar for the boy from Cambridgeshire.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 4

Conroy vs. Mugabe

Not a whole lot to talk about here, not much contest on any front, whether its Nations Partially Starved and Then Forced to Watch You Eat an 89 Kilogram Cake on Your Birthday (NPSTFWYE(89kg)CYB) (pictured) or in fact any other category that falls under general murderous or psychopathic dickishness, Mugabe has the senator’s number.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 5

Conroy vs. Ahmadinejad

I’m done. This has got to a stage where the premise being used to highlight the triviality and stupidity of the Daily Telegraph has itself become trivial and stupid. The government oversight proposed in legislation that no one has seen yet is supposedly of an existing independent body which everyone agrees is completely toothless, but which acts according to rules set up by the press themselves. More thorough enforcement of these rules thanks to government oversight would mean that the process would be more efficient and fairer. These rules do not impede free speech, but do prohibit lying and deliberate misrepresentation of the truth for the purposes of inciting racial or any other kind of hatred or fear. They are designed to hold the press to a standard that should be expected of any media outlet in a liberal democracy. The reaction of the News Ltd press in particular but the press generally has nothing to do with genuine concern about free speech and everything to do with concern that the kind of shit-stirring that the Telegraph usually engages in will no longer be allowed because it has neither a basis in fact nor any tangible benefit to the public.

Conroy : 0 Despots : 6