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2013
Jan 14, 2013 16:29:31 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 14, 2013 16:29:31 GMT 10
"The Life of Pi and Mr Pip for my movie jollies" I'm very much looking forward to Life Of Pi. I haven't been reading a lot of books in the last few years, but that one (and The Book Thief) both really grabbed me. LoP could be a disaster, or it could be real magic - I guess I'll have to wait and see. "But couldn't Peter have saved as all a lot of time and effort and made just ONE film to sit through?)" In principle I agree - he's definitely milking it for all it's worth, but the first episode _is_ quite a spectacle. It's quite gorgeous to look at, they've written a bit of humor into it, added some chase scenes and lots of really cool Tolkien-like landscapes. So I'm happy to indulge that one. Listening to peter jackson interviewed on NPR's Tell Me More recently - it seems that, in his spare time, it's been on a bit of a crusade over what appears to have been a dogdy conviction in the 90's ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Memphis
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 17:03:23 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 14, 2013 17:03:23 GMT 10
A Dark Truth looks interesting. Also features Forest Whittaker - always worth watching.
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 17:08:22 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 14, 2013 17:08:22 GMT 10
"The Book Thief"? Probably the best book written in the last decade or so. My guess is that they'll never be able to turn that into a film.
Also try Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell, if you like historical stuff.
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 19:19:20 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 14, 2013 19:19:20 GMT 10
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 19:25:33 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 14, 2013 19:25:33 GMT 10
Shit - just discovered that my laptop has a little tiny video cam, so small I never noticed it. Looks straight at me. But Skype turned it on automatically.
Scary!
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 19:48:47 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 14, 2013 19:48:47 GMT 10
Yep. Put a sticker on it, I reckon :-) www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/school_laptop_spying_case_prob.htmlI don't think that's the only instance of a school doing that, too. This business with the whitehaven share kerfuffle ... Yep, the protester did a bad thing. And it is entirely conceivable that innocent people were harmed in the process - nobody would be laughing if some of that 300 million that changed hands in an atmosphere of misinformation was theirs. And I agree that the greens were somewhat foolish to endorse/congratulate/identify with the action without first investigating to find out what the scale of the impact was. If the price really dropped, then that means there were trades, and it means that there were winners and losers - some of whom will have been superannuation recipients. It wasn't just a funny prank that only hurt the fat cats with the cigars. However ... it does seem to me that the rush to nail the ne'er-do-well to a tree does tend to obscure a very important question: I.e. how the hell was he able to fool the press in the first place? Don't reporters have rolodexes for this stuff? What - they read a press release about something _that_ massive and just called the number at the bottom? They didn't think to ask why there was no announcement or halt on trading before an announcement like that? Far out. I don't think it's the mining company who was truly punk'd there ...
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2013
Jan 14, 2013 20:15:54 GMT 10
Post by jack on Jan 14, 2013 20:15:54 GMT 10
Stephan Lewandowsky: "Putting in FOI requests seems to be common practice now."
Oh ye gods, those 'climate sceptic' FOIers don't even have the utilitarian appeal of the proverbial ambulance-chasing legal hack.
And like the proverbial ambulance chasers, they'll come to see it's like a box of chocklits: Ya never know what yer gonna git.
Re the latest Les Mis movie adaptation, I found Jackman's voice had a somewhat irritating nasal twang. (Crowe also, for that matter, but to a lesser degree.) But perhaps it was just my failing ears, I've seen some reviewers have given him a big tick.
Anyway for what it's worth I enjoyed it overall. And yes, you'd have to say the narrative is quite secondary to the musical production.
"nobody would be laughing if some of that 300 million that changed hands in an atmosphere of misinformation was theirs"
Anyone care to look into the exposure of their (compulsory) superannuation fund?
But no matter, it was a very forward-looking fraud.
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2013
Jan 15, 2013 7:53:19 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 15, 2013 7:53:19 GMT 10
The share price jumped back to it's previous level after a few hours - so I don't think anyone actually lost anything (unless they bailed out before the bounce back). And out great corporate leaders never do anything like insider trading, or setting up shell companies to avoid tax, or rorting Libor, or pinching workers super, or... www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19323954But one misguided Greenie pulls a rather successful publicity stunt and all the wannabe John Waynes that Murdoch can muster pull their pistols and start eyeing the surrounding Green/Leftie hordes with deathly determination. (Well I just saw Stagecoach for the umptteenth time).
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2013
Jan 15, 2013 9:13:29 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 15, 2013 9:13:29 GMT 10
"The share price jumped back to it's previous level after a few hours - so I don't think anyone actually lost anything (unless they bailed out before the bounce back)"
The company itself wasn't harmed and neither were any long-term shareholders. But if the price changed, then by definition SOMEBODY sold.
Something that ASIC might be interested to investigate is whether anyone close to the company bought any shares before the company's response was published.
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2013
Jan 15, 2013 9:30:56 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 15, 2013 9:30:56 GMT 10
TB seems to be quite miffed that the ABC pointed out that moylan didn't appear to be seeking to make any money out of his hoax, but I wonder ... is that actually an important point? Was the ABC merely guilty of actually understanding the law?
I'm not going to pretend to have read (let alone understand) the corporations act or ASIC act, but I would expect that for ASIC to be investigating, there must be some sort of reasonable grounds. I mean ... just making a false statement about a company is surely not enough to fall foul of the our share market regulator. If I declared that BHP sucked, and the share price fell - could I be prosecuted? What if I declared that the market for steel was about to drop out, and THEN the share price fell ...? Because people make wild claims about companies and industries all the time - windfarms, say, or geothermal energy. But unless a speaker actually has a connection with a company, or stands to profit somehow ... how on earth is it ASIC's business?
And yes, I realise that the hoax was a bit more specific and well-timed than that. But surely there has to be some legal test to distinguish between just talking crap and actually officially defrauding the market or falling foul of company law ... and I wonder if that's what the ABC was actually talking about.
Otherwise I'm a bit confused about how ASIC could be constrained. What would stop them from investigating every single financial pundit every time they made a dodgy prediction or just fundamentally got something wrong?
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2013
Jan 15, 2013 9:38:57 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 15, 2013 9:38:57 GMT 10
Hell - you've got me off on a tangent now about John Wayne. Yes he may have been a bigoted d.head, but he did make some memorable films. Apart from the John Ford classics there's The Shootist and True Grit.
I've got a DVD of his early westerns - before he made it big in Hollywood.
He even had a sense of irony.
"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves. "
That's entertainment.
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2013
Jan 15, 2013 19:04:32 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 15, 2013 19:04:32 GMT 10
There's racial conflict in Logan. ("Four days of violence" screams the Courier Mail.)
But who to blame? The Murdochians seem confused. On the one hand we have Aborigines. Only 60,000 years of history in the country to deal with. On the other we have Pacific Islanders - only 200 years of blackbirding to deal with there.
That's another fine mess you've gotten us into Stan.
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2013
Jan 16, 2013 9:20:03 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 16, 2013 9:20:03 GMT 10
"There's racial conflict in Logan"
And how do they know? Because BROWN people are involved.
That's what makes racial violence. Somebody is identifiably "racial". I.e. brown. If it's all white people, then at worst it can only be "ethnic". But we haven't had much "ethnic" violence in a while in australia, thank goodness. So let's call this one "racial", because there are brown people. Make sure there are some photos so the brown people can be clearly seen. No misunderstandings.
It couldn't possibly be just two mutually identified groups of bozos going on the biff for the reasons that bozos have always gone the biff - boredom, egos, some sort of trouble-maker, maybe something involving a girl. Nope, because as soon as there are one or more brown people involved - voila! It's racial. Ancient hatreds. That's all we need to know.
Likewise, the same level of reasoning allows one to conclude that the troubles in northern ireland were about religion, the civil war in the post-yugoslavia balkans was about religion, the sudanese civil war was somehow about language (aka "arabs") and sectarian fighting in post-saddam iraq is/was over deeply-held views on who should have taken over as chief imam after muhammed died. Truly.
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2013
Jan 16, 2013 10:04:52 GMT 10
Post by jack on Jan 16, 2013 10:04:52 GMT 10
"If it's all white people, then at worst it can only be 'ethnic'."
Well, it's 'racial' according to he who trades on that which divides us rather than that which unites us.
And apparently the deft application of simple arithmetic can prove that they're ALL troublemakers.
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2013
Jan 16, 2013 12:10:42 GMT 10
Post by angra on Jan 16, 2013 12:10:42 GMT 10
And Andrew Laming has poured petrol on the flames by tweeting...
''Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day's work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap?''
But he's since clarified this... Laming said, "To clarify: Working together to resolve these riots the priority. Training and a chance for jobs are key."
Yeah, brilliant.
When are pollies going to learn to stop tweeting every time they have a bottom burp?
All the headlines I can find identify this as a 'race riot'. Fits the bill I suppose for the media's agenda. But shootings in Sydney's inner west. Are these 'race riots'? 'Ditch the witch' protests - are these about race?
MoC is right. The language used confirms our prejudices and marks out the agenda.
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