Shane Smith.

Lately I’ve been addicted to the Vice Broadcasting Service (vbs.tv). Not only have they been responsible for epic movies like Heavy Metal in Baghdad, but they relentlessly travel the world showing you places you’d never thought you’d see in your life. I’m talking Liberia, the sewer kids of Colombia, heavy metal mobs on Aboriginal reservations; they literally know now bounds! It’s beyond gonzo journalism or ever war correspondence. They take you to places where war technically hasn’t stopped for 50 years like North Korea. Brining very nicely to the point of this blog: Shane Smith.

Somehow after years of working for a faceless corporate behemoth, I’ve found North Korea both bizarre and strangely intruiging. Perhaps all those bland grey office partitions have got me in the communist mind set. Whatever the reason, I found a Youtube video of Shane Smith going through North Korea as a clandestine filmmaker. I’m assuming that when he went through customs, he did not have to declare the watermelon sized balls he has on one of those arrivals forms.  It seems at no stage of this journey was there no sense of danger. Posing as tourists, at each corner their minders are warning them of the dangers of their actions.

The legend.

So after seeing the North Korea video a few times (it’s just that out there) and Smith’s trip to Liberia it got me thinking. OK so the guy has watermellon sized balls and thus pretty cool. Then he’s got these features of someone we know and love. So there’s no tell tale warts on the face, but the shortish beard and sideburns and long, greasy looking rock and roll hair. Is Shane the bastard child of Lemmy Kilmister? Quite possibly. After all if Vice is a rock and roll version of TV’s 60 minutes, it’s got to be a little close to the Motorhead ethos?! See for yourself with the photos above and below. For those of you not familiar with Kilmister’s work, Lemmy is Mr Heavy Metal. A title which should make him a complete egotistical douche a la Gene Simmons, but actually a complete gentleman and all round awesome bloke.

There are a few things that are wrong with this picture though. Note the scarf Shane’s wearrning which is totally un-metal. Oh and in his profile, he admits to signing the Bloc Party to his label. Even if he is Lemmy’s bastard son, he would still be hung at dawn for that in my book. At the very least, daddy Kilmister should give his kid a hiding for it! Anyway check out Motorhead and Vice TV for youself. Make your own mind up.

Acrassicauda are a band of four Iraqis in their twenties who have suffered such a plight. They were Iraq’s main if not only heavy metal band to have endured right through the war. A war which sent them from Baghdad, to Damascus in Syria, to Istanbul in Turkey and finally safe refuge in the good old USA. That’s a rough six years.

Their lives were documented in the movie Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Far from being just about metal music, this movie covered far more home truths about the madness and suffering of the Iraqi war than most docos of a political discourse. Moving from one place to another, they struggled to find a place where they could earn an honest living, let alone a venue for a gig. At one point they had to sell their instruments to pay the rent.

Given that only a few thousand Iraqis have benefited from refugee status in the US since the war began, it’s pretty miraculous. You’d like to think it was perhaps the magic of Obama, but the arrangements must’ve started while Bush was still in office! Frankly it’s reassuring to see that people aren’t forgotten right now.

Now the boys are in New Jersey. They can grow their hair as long as they want, listen to whatever music they like and lose the Islamic garb. As if that wasn’t enough, they managed to get backstage at a Metallica gig. Now it’s not often you see a war veteran metal head light up like a Christmas tree. But when James Hetfield walks in unannounced, gives them one of his guitars and signs it with ‘Welcome to America’ words can’t describe the reaction. Hetfield had a pretty big arsed smile on his face too. It’s just brilliant stuff to watch.

While my heart goes out to the victims of the local bush fires, their loss and the tough life decisions they’re making now, refugees are a constant. Acrassicauda have suffered irreconcilably for the best part of a decade and yet they’re truly lucky. You only have to see the movie to see what they’ve been through to survive, let alone to play their music.

I saw Heavy Metal in Baghdad a few months ago, and strongly urge you to do the same. The last I checked on the band, they were stuck in Turkey penniless broke. Let’s hope that America works out for them. And when it comes to acts of god, don’t just make the big conspicuous donation now. Keep it coming and make sure other burnt Aussies, and indeed forsaken refugees get their lives back.

P.S. One such charity is the United Nations High Council of Refugees (UNHCR). Reading this article, it looks like they’ve done at least something to help Acrassicauda in their plight. Which makes those monthly donations I’ve been making for several years quite worth while.

At the best of times a Hummer compensates for something. For the Vic Police it must be actual cops on the streets.

They asked ‘did you notice the extra police presence tonight?’ At first I thought ‘yeah sure’. Then it occurred to me, Chapel St is chock a block full of cops every Friday and Saturday and changed my answer. They setup a police truck and have cops by the dozen flanking it; usually next to the KFC near Commercial Road. Especially on a hot summers night. If anything, there were actually LESS COPS out tonight! But they did have police out on horseback for a change, which was unusual.Not to mention the roadworthy spot checks and booze buses they’ve been doing for years behind Chasers nightclub.

The next question was something like ‘do you feel safer with the extra police around?’ My response was an resolute no! By this stage it was clear that the ladies were more than likely coppers themselves (decent looking and nice to talk to too!). Public opinion was taking its toll on them.

For a start, they’d copped (no pun intended) a bunch of flack for the massive V8 police cars patrolling in 40 kph urban zones. And particularly the fact they’re always en route to somewhere or in police stations that basically resemble military barracks (most in the south eastern suburbs virtually are).

Interestingly one of the ladies, cop or not, and I got talking about experiences in Peru. In Peru it was typical South American stereotypical stuff. Two cops would be reclined all day in a Landcruiser parked in the centre of town. Usually napping behind the heavily tinted glass. You might think this is bad. But when you needed a cop, you could always find one and bang on the window. It keeps bad guys in check too knowing they might wake up a copper if they’re too loud.

And they were always in a public place keeping one eye out. Even if the other one was being rested.  She kind of conceded it’s better to have cops on the street, maintaining a visible presence. Sometimes they stood around in jack boots with automatic machine guns, but they were nice guys. And it wasn’t the gun that made me feel safe. It was the fact they were physically on the street.

Then I thought of Japan and how in their major metropolis’, they have tiny police boxes everywhere. More like a kiosk than a police station, scattered amongst vending machines and bike racks. Some big enough to situate maybe 4-6 police. This puts police right in the public eye. And there’s always somewhere safe to run to. Many modern day slaves of the Yakuza conned into being prostitutes have made a mercy dash for the police box and been saved. Where are our permanent police boxes in Melbourne? Damn right, they don’t exist.

So before this gets to AM talk back radio, I’m gonna wrap this up! For police even to conduct such a survey, something is pathetically wrong. They have become like a spoilt only child with Hummers, V8 Holdens and horses and bright, shiny vests but forgotten what they’re here for.  Not to play with their toys, but to protect us.

Now to prove I’m not all AM radio here, frankly I know nothing about policing. So by all means, comment your heart out. Set me straight! I don’t mind and I’m certainly not anti-police. I only know when I do feel safe. And despite the first/third world contrast, at times I felt safer in Peru knowing at worst a cop was a few hundred metres away. In Melbourne, I have absolutely no idea.

So put the bling Hummers to rest, polish up those boots and start walking the beat. Setup a deck chair in the centre of town and maintan a presence. For fucks sake, have a kip in your car! But get out in the cold hard light of day and become a part of the community again.

Syndicated national press were apparently given gas masks, whilst independent media were rounded up and arrested with the protestors in the confusion. Althought this footage is not conclusive. For all intents, they could’ve been cops or government employees in a quasi-media capacity. At the end of the vid, press were formally asked to leave.

Anyway check it out. From the land of milk and honey you have scenes that make Jakarta or Israel look like a Holiday Inn resort, for people that posed little to no threat to law and order. Wierd.

These two links show footage from your average garden variety protest at the Republican National Convention in St Paul Minnesota. Apparently the convention was held earlier this week.

Video 1. A bunch of peaceful and apparently lawful socialist protestors have about a dozen riot police take aim at them. A steady procession of stun grenades and eventually tear gas are fired, forcing them to walk away several hundred metres. Police it appears at times force them to walk through the tear gas. The protestors and journalists (apparently) are rounded up in a park and arrested en masse over a loud speaker for god only knows what charge [not captured in the video footage].

By this stage, blackshirt riot police way outnumber protesters. But by any stretch, this is far too much force for a punch of peacenik, unarmed, basically sedintary uni students. I’d say it was too much force for a grand final football riot. With the exception of one punk-arsed kid who shouted out ’seig hail!’ to the dozen or so cops, which hardly warranted the attack. It seemed a pretty valid description if you ask me.

Video 2: A journalist reporting at the RNC with credentials is arrested by the same blackshirt cops for barely crossing a police line. The journalist Amy Goodman was charged with “obstruction of a legal process and interference with a ‘peace officer.’” Two of her producers were arrested for “suspicion of felony riot.”

Whatever your take on these videos, either confrontation frankly meant zero threat to the police involved. Apart from at one point mention of ‘a guy with a rock’, I’m pretty sure every day police in everyday kit could’ve dealt with the threat posed by students. Let alone the fact they had every right to be there. No military required. Makes you wonder whether beneath the black kevlar if these cops were infacy soldiers. Hey! These guys are so tough, allegedly 5 of these blackshirt goons kicked the shit out of a minor they even left a boot mark in his back!

Little wonder all the press go with is a story about Sarah Palin’s daughter’s illegitimate child. No doubt commenting on such stories means i’ll never get to visit the US now. Because apparently their customs/Homeland Security Google you now on entry. You know, for practising the freedom of speech their own constitution awards them. Clearly anyone with a non pro-Republican agenda is an enemy of the corporations and/or interests represented by the Republican Party and must be quashed. Fascism in the making? More in the flesh.

Basically they’re talking about a terrorist like event online. Such an event would be used as a catalyst to introduce legislation that would greatly reduce our freedoms and functionality online. Not that’s it’s without precedent. Call me far out, but without Pearl Harbor, the US would never have entered WWII; without 9/11, there’d be no Patriot Act I or II. Yes sir, there’s speculation of an iPatriot Act. Yet another example no doubt of how you’d have to sacrifice a little more liberty for freedom. Which was in 2001, and still is now an absolute contradiction in terms.

The comment itself was made by Laurence Lessig. Yes I’m sure you’re thinking big pedophile beard and ugly glasses, but he’s a Stanford law professor and was instrumental creative commons licensing for internet content. This is the really sensational comment though:

“Remember that after 9/11, the government dropped the Patriot Act in about 20 days, and it was passed, and the Patriot Act is huge. I remember someone asking a Justice Department official, how do they write such a large statute so quickly? The answer was, it’s been sitting in a drawer at the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event that would allow them to drop it.”

What makes me a bit skeptical is that while the internet was a US invention, it’s not governed solely by the US. Some massive level of international co-operation would be required to make such an act happen. Well you heard it here, or there, first. Don’t you love living in a world where the only way politicians can stay in office is to ensure you’re terrified and they can protect you from a situation they’d very much envisaged coming? Bugger.

Etax is not a new thing. I have been using it for at least five years now and I find it’s simply getting harder to download (e.g. navigating the ato.gov.au web site) and slower to download. Not the actions of a clever country.

At a time when the Australian federal government is talking up a nation-wide broadband network, is it little surprise they’re still coming up a little short online? What am I talking about? If you do your own tax return and you’ve submitted it by now, you’ll know what i’m talking about. Downloading eTax from the ATO web site is hideously, painfully slow. Seriously it takes about how long it took to download back anything back in 1995 when Mosaic was about the only browser around it and Netscape 1.0 wasn’t out yet. It may have been on a 24K modem, I can’t remember. What I can remember is how in 10 years, I thought ridiculously long download times for an 8 meg file would be a thing of the past. Clearly not.

So have I benchmarked my claims? Well yes. On an ADSL 2+ connection not more than 800 metres or so from the exchance I was downloading the eTax program at a transfer rate of around 6K per second. On a 3G HSDPA connection, alternating between3G and HDSPA speeds, the download is averaging 2-3K transfer rate per second. This is the speed of third world nations. By contrast, I can download the Firefox web browser at around 60K transfer rate per second. Updates for my Mac, around double that.

Sadly the ATO web site lacks the necessary bandwidth to handle the demand of people downloading eTax at once. One solution is that they massively upgrades their servers and throughput at the tax office, spending hundreds of thousands. But there are very simple solutions. Why don’t they make the downloadable eTax file available through sites designed to facilitate for quick downloads like Rapidshare or Yousendit? Better still provide a torrent, so you could download it over the peer to peer network, something that’s NOT illegal! You could even put it on a web site like CNET or TUCOWS that have mirrors with bigger, reliable ISPs all over the world!

These alternatives are not quantum physics or rocket science. They involve simply uploading a file and posting the link to it on the eTax website. Instead I have to waste and hour of my time on a Sunday. Because that’s how long it’s going to take to download this mundane file. Quite literally for a simple tax return, it will take longer to download the file than to complete the return.

So I put it to the government peeps who are going to take several months to chew the cud on tenders for the new Aussie Broadband network, is all that bandwidth going to make bugger all difference when you can’t organise downloads off of government web sites properly? I doubt it.

So to the bean counters at the ATO, pull your fingers out of your collective arses and do something about it. It’s not good enough. I had faster downloads in Cusco in Peru for crissakes! Who wants to bet I get audited next year….

Cocaine is a drug that takes a ridiculous amount of coca leaves to make. The leaves apparently are chewed until you have loads of it and somehow refined into the blow we all know in the movies. As I’ve now discovered first hand, chewing a mouth full of coca leaves will not get you high. You’d could chew all day and night and not get anywhere!

What coca leaves do do is help with altitude sickness, digestion and general well being. In our travels in Peru, we actually found coca flour. It must of been made from ultra ground coca leaves. Basically it’s in a green powerdery form. A teaspoon of that in hot water a day and it will cure whatever ails you trust me! I swear by it. Very high in calcium and a bunch of vitamins too.

In daily life, Peruvians especially will drink mate de coca (coca tea, basically a handful of coca leaves in hot water). Farmers chew the leaves as they work. There’s even coca lollies. They ain’t chocolate flavour but it is an acquired taste. So in essence, half of Peru eats them everyday and they’re a digestive at best. Most restaurants and guest houses have coca leaves in a jar on the table like salt and pepper.

The problem is apparently that the President of Peru is fumigating massive coca plantations. It is the beginnings of the criminalisation of the coca plant, not just cocaine. This sucks. Furthermore, having experienced the health benefits of coca leaves first hand (call it travelers’ stomach eating too much rich food!), it’s a pretty stupid state of affairs.

So in Peru, you will see shirts and stickers that say ‘Coca, la hoja de coca no es druga‘ or ‘coca is not a drug’. I support them whole heartedly. Because look at what happened to marijuana after world war two. Hemp went from being mandatory in the US to grow for the war effort (to make parachutes and ropes, military kinda stuff) to being wiped out because it threated the whole paper industry in peace time. And it’s still criminalised. I hope Peru don’t end up down this path. Sure blow is a dirty business but coca’s not the problem.

Sadly this won’t be the case from hereon in. In preparation for the Olympics, China is becoming so procifient in dealing with dissent that they’re simply killing dissentors in record numbers and in record time. No trial, just incarceration. If you’re thought to be a threat, apparently you could be dead in a jail cell within hours.

Weapon of choice, well an electric batton of course! Just get 7 or 8 cops in a cell and beat the shit out of the prisoner (no phone book required). After all they’re just doing their job. Oh just don’t damage the internal organs, because they harvest and transplant human organs to party faithful, and one can only guess the very, very rich.

This die in custody bit is a bit unusual. Usually the prisoner at least used to get the firing squad, or death by lethal injection. The later is typically done in specially designed trucks, so they can quickly operate on the victim in remote provinces and recover the organs on site.

So rest assured, some Communist Government cadre or rich Hong Kong guy is going to get a healthy new set of lungs for someone else’s free will. Geez I hope someone pisses on the Olympic flame. This is just not cricket! My condolences to the victims of these most recent and heinous human rights violations – even by Chinese government standards.

But remember kids, it’s important to hate the government, not the people. So if ever you needed an excuse not to watch the Olympics, I hope this helps.

If you’re really game, read the source article here. The alledged Louis Rove has so many piercings, he’s like an inverted colander or a gold plated, purple headed Darlek. Well at least he can follow in his son’s footsteps and join the Conservative Party in the UK…

Aah when the truth comes out about neo-cons. Oh dear god I hope that this is true. This is funnier than the refugees that snuck into England in Tony Blair’s customised BMW limo… Pure gold! Ironically I found this because I was searching for the apparent new You Am I album title “I’m Proud Of My Gay Son”. This find was almost as good as a new You Am I album. But please Timmy, top this one!