BONWAG

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I’m not interested in talking about the antics of the Sea Shepherd any more; unless they repay the money my government has had to spend on rescuing their ADHD addled cronies from a Japanese whaling ship in the southern ocean. Seems they sink or swim on free publicity.

No more from me.

Oh, by the way, we’ll be having that GST back, too, thanks.

Idiots.

UPDATE: Here are the public facts about where the money comes from. Love the part about them being unable to seek charity status because, to paraphase, they don’t actually help the whales. Best government decision evar.

UPDATE II: It cost us one million dollars – the same one million dollars that had been allocated for policing of the whale sanctuary. Feeling sheepish yet, stupid hippies?

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The main reason this whole thing sounds like a TV show is that it IS a TV Show based on the shifting fortunes of a celebrity-centered fundraising organisation. Complete with expensive flying robot camera coverage.

Interesting to note that Animal Planet is hinting that this might be the last season for the mission’s reality show. A cynic might suggest that a manufactured series of desperate, headline-grabbing incidents – captured exclusively by the embedded television crew – would stave off the axe, and the lucrative sponsorships, for a year or two. It’s not like the captain is shy about his ‘interventionist’ approach to activism.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Japanese whaling industry isn’t glistening with rectitude over its admissions that part of the Tsunami relief funds have been redirected into the whaling industry, ostensibly to help revive the fortunes of the devastated city of Ishinomaki.

Dear Sir/Madam

As my duly elected representative in a representative democracy, I write to remind you that your ‘Concience Vote’ in parliament does not belong to you.

You are elected to reflect the collective conscience of my electorate. The extent to which you reflect it will determine your success in the next ballot.

Please do not think that because you have been freed from the confines of party policies that you are entitled to reflect your personal views in parliament. You were elected because people believe you reflect views that closely match their own, and made promises which people felt were worthy of support. You are your electorate.

However, it is unreasonable to expect that you will be in-step with your electorate on every issue, especially those which carry significant moral and ethical contention. You must consult widely and reflect the view of the electorate in your conscience vote.

You are not in Canberra as my gladiator or superstar. I will not support your ‘courageous’ or ‘deeply held’ convictions if you cannot claim a broad consensus. I expect you to vote against your personal beliefs if you cannot convince your own electorate – your own neighborhood – of the merits of your position. If you are unable to represent my own position in Canberra, I will still support you if you can show that my own view is in the minority.

Because your conscience vote does not belong to you, it is not a commodity that can be bought or traded. You do not have my permission to consult with anyone other than my fellow electors when deciding the vote you will cast on my behalf. I expect you to be transparent and explicit about this process.

I wish you well in parliament. Please consult me, represent me, and let me know how you get on.

David

Amex knows something we don’t know: after years in the wilderness, the Palm-and-stylus form factor is set to return.

(From the latest Amex marketing collateral)

Another big BONWAG Birthday – it’s reached the age of consent for South Australia and Tasmania, but still has a year to go in Queensland.

To think that all those years ago there was no such thing as a ‘blogs’, ‘social networks’ or ‘web content management systems’ – BONWAG was ahead of its time as a web journal, lovingly crafted out of raw, grain-fed ASCII and free-range command line FTP and terminal sessions. It’s been many years since I needed to CHMOD 777 my CGI (as Geoff Petersen would say: is that code? Why, yes: yes it is.)

In the past year, I’ve probably shoveled more words into Twitter than this blog, but fear not – fairding.com will remain the one stop shop for all flavours of bonwaggery – from MySpace and Geocities to Unthink and Google Plus, and whatever comes next.

(BTW: why is is that even today, no-one ever gets the ‘fairding.com’ joke?)

For a dose of history; visit the first post, or visit the archive of the earliest known version of BONWAG.

For no reason; here’s a shot of Mount Everest looking particularly beautiful today.

You need to have a sense of humour to be a Norwegian Dentist, evidently.

Here’s a description of my first trip to New York in the September of 2001.

• September 11 – “I am safe, and unsure what is in store.”
• September 12 – “I’ve just been told that everyone in my company has been accounted for”
• September 13 (also, and also) – “The tide is turning.”
• September 15 – “Talk here is turning to war.”
• September 16 (also) – “Next report, Perth, hopefully.”
• September 19 – “I’m finally back home.”

This story, ‘Sneakers‘, written well after the events, describes some personal connections with NYC which became more significant in hindsight.

Sebastian’s first comments about the rediscovered iTeddy: “Daa-ad: why is that there?”