Share owning society

Government launchs "new brand of share". You need to have some. Have you owned a BHP lately? Don't missout! Get your latest internet craze stock while prices are still rational.

There is a whole bunch of new enthusiastic money being thrown at the stockmarket. People looking to make massive capital gains. There are the potential dividends if hold on to the shares ofcourse.

We should off our arses incorporating a public company to develop a new thing a ma jig.

And the whole point is, that if we can teach people to actually spread their money in such a way to let some crumbs land in the little guy zone, then the people with new ideas will actually be able to raise the capital to get a venture started.

The maturity of the equity market.

Just as we increasingly become aware that political changes come about from the involvement by people generally who develop their comprehension of how the clock ticks, we also can learn the way the mechanisms in other systems provide optimum responses to identifiable and definable actions.

People want to implement new ideas and move forward, not just make capital gains through sleight of hand.

end of rant.

Public Transport versus the car

We simply want to be able to go fast as possible - without risk. Do we need autonomus units which can drift any which way? Doesn't make sense to devise a system whereby you are shot along at the fastest speed possible to the destination of your choice?

This is the seed of a lateral thought. What do my dear readers see as the possible solution to such a claim? We need engineers of a particular type. What type and where are they being the only questions needing an answer.

end of rant.

MLMs

What's the flavour of the month at the moment? Is it overpriced natural health products, which you are required to buy, an "entry fee" and all you have to do is coach 5 other people to take the same bait. Maintain your tree and watch it grow, till Kaboom. Sydney is saturated and thousands at the base of the pyramid lose $700.

You are always lucky enough to be near the start of the pyramid (ofcourse).

Slowly the smarm overwhelms you, so that you are breathing the sweet drift of a delightful dream.

No selling!

No public contact!

Just screw those casual acquaintances, or if you are truly lost, close friends. Or is it simple mindedness?

The heavy use of religious guilt techniques is all but lost on a hardened ex-catholic such as myself. In fact, I bite my tongue to avoid laughing raucously at yet another recitation of the "you too can be wealthy, if you beleive in yourself..." script.

Do I not have eyes or ears? Is it clear before all that all those who have achieved financial success did so after some years of heavy application, of which some receive a booster shot from established parents?

"you too can be earning a six figure salary after 8 months" if you can effectively convince: 5+(5*5)+(5*5*5)+(5*5*5*5)+(5*5*5*5*5)+(5*5*5*5*5*5)= 5*(1+5+(5*5)+(5*5*5)+(5*5*5*5)+(5*5*5*5*5))= etc =19,530 people

with 15,000 or so at the base...

end of rant.

Sinking into a pit of irrelevence

I want to do it all. The inability to say no leads one into a spiral of effort that results in scattered energies and lack of sleep. This rant I provide you is one thing I actually want to do. But so many other things come across my path (both wanted and unwanted) and I feel an urge to become a ruthless business animal that slices through life like those sharp edged souls we see in the news.

You can do anything you want, but you can't do everything.

I come out of a 1 hour stint of updating a website. Fine, now it's 11:40pm. So I update my rant page. Another 20 minutes. It's midnight. Then I check for final emails of the day: another 5 minutes assuming no responses are needed. All the while I casually surf the internet for things I "need".

MY NAME IS SYLVANO...AND I AM POWERLESS OVER THE INTERNET.

Aaaarggghhh !

That's better. Now where was I? Oh yeah, so the fact that one needs to be like a cleaver to the day is actually quite sad in a way. The whole concept of actually having to achieve something is an evil purpetuated by our myopic culture.

I am going to sleep.

end of rant.

Horoscope

It is too bold a claim to be ignored.

Ofcourse they have the advantage of telling what will happen and are but dim memories by the time our week is finished. Their specific language is remembered selectively and rarely revisited after the fact. In the few cases one does cross reference actual experience with the text, one is sadly disappointed by the all too fluid and vague nature of the predictions.

So don't spoil your week! Read your horoscope today, and throw the paper away at once.

end of rant.

saturday is for mowing lawns

You don't return classic Coke bottles to the store for a refund and there seem to be a lot more shootings in the news.

Saturdays can make me so nostalgic.

end of rant.

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Give me back my ball!

The recent Kurdish news highlights an example of a group of people who are who claim their homeland is now inaccessible due to it being partitioned to other groups of people. Debate rages on about legitimate claims.

Australia's ongoing inability to reconcile the aboriginal land issue is partly a symptom of the complexity and scale of the problem. But again, debate rages on about legitimate claims.

East Timor and independence from Indonesia, Northern Ireland, that island off China, certain African states, the West Bank and Quebec. Conflicts at different levels of violence, diplomacy and politicing are displayed everywhere about land disputes. Two or more sides have a different point of view about who should have access to the land.

In Australia's case, there are few people who could deny the obvious pre-ownership rights over the lands of Australia by the aborigines. Our debate is largely political as a result. Achieving a political outcome between groups.

The situation in Kosovo, on the other hand, is one which is much less political and much more about war. Groups of people who all believe the land was originally theirs. Very tricky. (I just heard they are evacuating western staff from embassies and preparing for NATO bombing).

The solution adopted in most serious land disputes is physical conflict. Is there another way? Many are hopeful we are seeing a better UN / NATO structure coming into action.

Objective bombing.

end of rant.

Thursday...I never did get the hang of Thursdays

I found myself doing a double take today, when I heard a radio presenter comment that the last track was "a classic hit from '91".

I was in a Thursday time vortex...Am I really getting that old? That song was only released last year - I'm sure it was...That's 8 years ago. [A then one day you find, ten years have got behind you - Pink Floyd].

That's what the millenium madness is about in reality...The people just in front of me - the babyboomers - really coming to terms of how old they are. Memories of their childhood days in 1955 when they calculated they would be 55 in the year 2000. And hear we are on the doorstep of their retirement and they are freaking out.

end of rant.

Oh my God!

I see this as a classical rise of despotism when politicians talk of God and government in the same breath. Parliament is device for the people to co-ordinate and make rules. Any hint of linking divine authority with human authority is a red alert for society.

God is the group of concepts and beliefs of some people. For some it is atheism. For others Buddhism. etc. Or even Satanism.

The diversity of expression by all people is diminished by the setting of the tone of the population. Suggesting God for the preamble instantly allows us to appreciate the implicit culture being encouraged. And if you don't march to the tune, then you feel the force of persuasion bending you to conform.

Think like me; believe as I do; for that is the desire of the people in power. A subtle nudge to conform or shutup.

And power they have. When you see funding to universities slashed, and those on the dole are to be forced to perform bullshit jobs, you can see the power.

Why spend money educating people, when they could be harvesting dandelions? Or painting council fences.

Why encourage individual thought and creativity? There are diesel users to subsidise and roads to build, "welfare" to pay and defence to pay for.

While we allow the beleif to prevail that "we can't do something" then impotence is assured. Civil disobedience is nothing more than pushing the edges and letting the state actively step in to stop you. Then you have found a boundary, can rigourously define it, and regure why the hell citizens must be restricted thus.

If 50% of the population chose to not vote at the next election (hyperthetically) , and not pay the fine, what could the government do?

If travel agents just started selling cheap interstate flights on foregin jets, what could they do? Start a protective policy war?

And they want individuals to bargain for a wage job! HA!! Let the airlines come to terms with competition and allow the consumer their right to free-trade price benefits. They're always be jobs for the workers in the Industry, it'll just be investors getting burnt. That's fine. They have failed their job: Instead of moving their business into new areas, they sought trade barriers to provide a service to people at a guaranteed profit.

God help us.

end of rant.

Smoke and Mirrors

A difficult problem can exist for years, then voohm! like magic some one comes along and provides the oh-so obvious solution.

Yet until that point, we suffer the propaganda war from all interested parties, and fed so much di-information and have so little time, that we can never be quite sure.

Instead of proper thinking, we satisfy ourselves with the pragmatic task of admitting or dismissing problems as relevent to us, or "somebody else's problem".

Consider:

It is one of my flip-flop realities, that on the one hand I love the internet for example, and yet, on the other hand I can see nothing better than intense use of the brain with pen, paper and the occasional direct chat with a human.

Now, the reason I say this is that the techno toys and challenges in our modern lives generally seem to require more and more "brain power" but not necessarily any more thinking.

Compare it with the same symptoms on the strictly physical dimension: more people spend more time going to gymnasiums, playing sport and jogging. Less people seem to actually use their physical force to carry out useful tasks as such.

end of rant.