Tetherd Cow Ahead

I had cause today to phone an insurance company and when I got through heard the following message:

Your call is important to us and has been placed in a priority queue.

Priority queue? Priority queue? Wha? Wha?

So now, apparently, there’s (at least) two kinds of queues that you can get on people’s switchboards? Since I just dialed in using a number from the phone book it got me to wondering just how insignificant you’d have to be to get the normal ‘non-priority’ queue.

I waited and waited on the priority queue. But at least I eventually got through. Some schmuck is still hanging on…

Sir Elton John, international pop icon and fashion maven, has called for the internet to be shut down.

The Oddball Pinball Wizard bemoans the fact that the internet “stops people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff” and instead might allow them to make their own music at home. This is, apparently, a bad thing because it “doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision”.

Elton John joins a growing list of people who think that the internet is some kind of intellectual property communist plot and will ruin the arts, the media and just about everything else in which they have vested interest. Foremost among these is the laughable Andrew Keen. Keen, who has described the net as a “grand utopian movement” like “communist society” and recently penned the whining Cult of the Amateur, is, however, very happy to use the net to promote his views through his blog and his podcasts.*

Elton sobs out his fear that there will be no more great art if that intertube thingy is allowed to continue unhampered:

“We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.”

So there you have it you lazy bunch of no-hopers! What are you doing sitting around reading this. Go out an create a pre-internet work of genius!

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*You will note that in contrast to my usual method here on The Cow, I have not hot-linked any of Keen’s net presence instances or works, other than an information link to Wikipedia (a site which Keen detests, predictably enough). I consider him to be a major hypocrite, an elitist and worst of all in my opinion, an old-fashioned bore.

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About a year ago here on The Cow we had cause to examine the Irish company Steorn and their announcement of the discovery of a remarkable way of creating unlimited amounts ‘free energy’.

As you may remember, Steorn was challenging scientists to disprove their claim that the laws of physics are entirely wrong and promising that you’d never ever have to put your mobile phone on charge again.

Well, Steorn are still chugging along (powered by some kind of energy – mostly produced by hot air I’m guessing) and have wheeled out a gadget to silence the naysayers once and for all! Catchily titled ‘Orbo’, early photos show that the machine looks like nothing so much as a few plastic pipes and some Meccano.

And guess what Cow Fans? They have a working model ready for ALL THE WORLD TO SEE! Well, actually, not so much. You see, Steorn recently announced that Orbo would be unveiled for public scrutiny at the London Kinetica Museum on July 4th. This event was to coincide with a simultaneous streaming on the Steorn site (presumably from somewhere deep withing the Steorn Free Energy Complex) of live video of a ‘simpler’ (their word) version of the machine ‘lifting a weight’. But, darn, golly gosh, just as everyone was tensing up for the complete re-writing of human history, a few problems seemed to have materialized out of nowhere and, well, they had to cancel the viewing and the web demo at the last moment. Colour me surprised.

It seems that heat from the lights in the room where Orbo was to be exhibited at Kinetica somehow interfered with its capacity to create unlimited energy, delicate little thing that it is. One hopes that the consumer model will be a little more robust if Steorn’s plans to roll out Orbo as part of their scheme to solve all the problems of Africa aren’t to appear a little dismal. It gets a little warm in Africa from time to time, or so I’m told.

It isn’t explained anywhere why the Kinetica ‘heat-from-the-lights’ setback should have had any material effect on the planned webcam stream but there you go.

It’s interesting to observe that Sean McCarthy has now come down unequivocally on the side of claiming to have disproved the Laws of Thermodynamics. He says as much on the Steorn site:

This is an extraordinary position to attempt to defend. I can’t even say it’s controversial – it’s BEYOND controversy.

Scanning through the Steorn website is a perplexing experience. It seems that these guys really do believe in what they’re doing. One is forced to contemplate the following possibilities:

1. They have rewritten the Laws of Physics as we know them.

2. A fairly large group of well-presented and reasonably intelligent people have somehow fooled themselves into believing Possibility #1.

3. They’re pulling our collective legs.

4. They are consummate swindlers, hoping to profit by pulling in the dollars from gullible suckers.

5. There’s something else going on.

Taken in order: Possibility #1 is by far the most unlikely of events. It is true that there have been occasional turbulent upheavals in scientific thinking, but very very few of those come entirely out of the blue without any indications at all from the prevailing body of scientific knowledge. To clarify, the principles that Steorn are suggesting they have discovered overshadow any other scientific revolution you can name. On the other hand, Steorn is in the company of almost countless numbers of people who have thought they had discovered such miracles.

Which brings us to Possibility #2. I guess it is feasible, but I find it hard to believe that none of these people are aware that they are the latest in a very long line of people to have made such claims to their detriment. But I never underestimate the capacity of human beings to comprehensively delude themselves if the conditions are favourable.

Possibility #3: If it’s a joke they’ve dragged it on for an awfully long time, and we all know the secret of good humour – it’s in the timing.

Possibility #4: Where I’m placing my money. Although there’s one further possibility that hadn’t occurred to me until recently…

Which is Possibility #5. Something else. It came to my attention on Tech Blorge last week that the whole Steorn thing might actually be something other than what it seems, specifically, some kind of viral marketing test or information dissemination experiment. The favourite in this field would appear to be a viral for Halo 3, but in my opinion that seems unlikely. It just doesn’t feel right. But there is definitely something fishy about the Steorn site – as the Tech Blorge guys say, it looks more like it’s been put up by some slick advertising types than the usual free energy type of nitwit. It is feasible that Steorn is wheeling in a Trojan Horse.

Are they idiots? Are they conmen? Are they having a jolly old time running everyone around in circles?

Sean McCarthy seems happy to grasp the bull by the horns:

Yes Sean. You’ve done everything EXCEPT actually demonstrate that your idea works. Really. If your machine does what you say IT’S A SPECTACULAR RESULT. It’s not a maybe-it-does-maybe-it-doesn’t kinda scenario surely? Show us the money Steorn, that’s ALL you have to do!

UPDATE: This video on YouTube clinches it for me – they are swindlers. This is the most nonsensical piece of rubbish and misdirection I’ve seen in a long time. Wait till the bit where Sean says “…and that’s the science!” and consider what’s gone before. That’s the science? Sean, that was a humungously cretinous piece of waffle. That’s not science by a long shot.

That’s snake oil.

An excellent way of demonstrating to the world that you don’t have any.

So anyway. The Vatican has evidently decided that, in keeping with their habit of meddling in matters in which they have no expertise (nor even barely adequate knowledge for that matter), they need to hand down some rules, Commandments, even, for the drivers of motor vehicles. Yes, you heard right, The Holy Office has decided that what the world really really needs is a Catholic Church endorsed Ten Commandments of Motoring.

What? I say, what?

How do they get an imprimatur to do this kind of thing? Where the hell is anything about motoring mentioned in the Bible? (OK, OK, not counting that bit about Moses charging across the desert in his Triumph)

To demonstrate the clarity of mind with which The Holy See tackles this matter, I ask you to scrutinize the above image taken from their 36-page document Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road. In case you can’t quite make it out, this a picture of a chap wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Being Drunk is Fun’ whilst directing traffic. The traffic consists of rabbits in open-top cars. The man holding the sign has some kind of radiation emerging from behind him. Note the black arrow that points upwards near his Stop sign.

OK. Without reading further, anyone have even a remote idea what this is supposed to convey?

Let me enlighten you: this is Commandment of the Road #9 – On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

Do I need to offer a more persuasive example of why religion in general, and The Pope in particular, should not be allowed even close to matters of the Actual Real World. To further emphasize the tenuous grip on reality that the Catholic Church is demonstrating with their release of the Asphalt Tablets, I note that they also suggest that ‘praying while driving’ is to be encouraged. I’d like to suggest that concentrating while driving would be far more useful, having experienced my fair share of drivers who have evidently substituted prayer for road knowledge.

Well, if the Vatican can get in on the act, I see no reason at all why I shouldn’t have a say. I submit for your delectation:

The Church of the Holy Cow Ten Commandments of Motoring.

#1: Thou shalt not drive big gas-guzzling SUVs nor Hummers nor those stupid trucks with unnaturally big wheels.

#2: Thou shalt not sit in thy motionless car for hours with thine engine running for absolutely no reason.

#3: Thou shalt not install in thy vehicle a music system that has more power than thine engine.

#4: Thou shalt not display ‘wobbly head’ dogs on thy dashboard.

#5: Thou shalt not display ‘clever’ number plates like CUL8R or S810*

#6: Thou shalt not have a horn that plays ‘krazy’ tunes like Yankee Doodle Dandy.

#7: Thou shalt not drive around gratuitously burning fossil fuel in a convoy of stupid little vehicles towing advertising signs.

#8: Thou shalt not be a seller nor a buyer of a vehicle with a stupid brand name.

#9: Thou shalt not make “motoring-related” music video clips such as this.

#10: That last one contains enough sin for two Commandments.

Here endeth today’s Lesson.

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*I feel very pleased with myself that I just made that up!

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…and I apologize to the world on behalf of many of us who are embarrassed at the behaviour of the intellectual vacuum that is our government.

This week the Australian Federal Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, formally announced the introduction of the Australian Citizenship Test, colloquially known as the Aussie Values Test. I’ve spoken about it before on The Cow, but I had hoped that it would just evaporate back into the Formless Void of Moronic Ideas from whence it originally came.

Not so it seems.

Basically it works like this: soon, if you apply for citizenship in Australia, you will be asked a set of 20 questions (chosen from a possible list of 200) that define the proper values you would need to embrace to be accepted into this country.

This whole idea is odious and small-minded and speaks right to the undercurrent of racism that flows just beneath the surface of uneducated Australia. It says, to put it into simple language: “We don’t want you here unless you’re like us, and hold the same ideas as us”.

But who is this ‘us’? Yes, you guessed it, ‘us’ is White, middle-class, Judeo-Christian, heterosexual, television-watching consumers.

I submit for your consideration some of the questions that ‘might’ be asked in this test, according to Minister Andrews:

1. What sports are played in Australia

2. Are Australian values based on the Koran, the Judeo–Christian tradition, Catholicism or secularism?

3. Which of the following are Australian values? A: Men and women are equal; B: A fair go; C: Mateship; D: All of the above

4. Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia?

5. What is Australia’s national flower?

6. Who is Australia’s Head of State?

7. How long have the indigenous aboriginal population lived on the Australian continent?

These questions can be roughly divided into three categories: Irksome, Stupid and Irrelevant.

Few people would know or understand why the answer to question 6 is: ‘Queen Elizabeth II of England’, and how this has relevance to Australian citizenship. Question 1 and 5 are plainly daft and prove nothing at all, and question 2 is just offensive (it may as well say ‘Don’t bring your foreign religions here Sajid’). I doubt that ninety percent of fourth generation Australians would know the answer to question 4.

And question 3. I cringe. The answer is, if you didn’t get it, ‘All of the above’, but the question is so banal, mindless and hypocritical that I really want to biff the person who made it up. And biffing would have to constitute a fairly well-held Aussie Value.

Men and women are equal? Then why does the major religious organization of Australia, the Roman Catholic Church, deny women the right to participate equally with men in all aspects of the church?

A ‘fair go’? Not if you’re an immigrant seeking political asylum, or a disenchanted and exploited worker. Or a telco trying to compete with the monopoly of Telstra over the Australian telecommunication infrastructure. Or a customer trying to get service, for that matter.

Mateship? Not if it’s politically or ethically difficult.

And speaking of hypocritical… what, exactly, is the point of question 7? If it’s to emphasize that the Aboriginal people have been here longer than us, then why does the current government repeatedly and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the rights of those people?

This country is full of dumb greedy people getting dumber and greedier.

Here are some questions I guarantee won’t be in the Aussie Values test:

1. Name one Australian scientist.

2. How much water does it take to maintain an average Australian suburban lawn?

3. Out of 171 states, territories and countries around the world, only two have not ratified the Kyoto protocol. One is the USA. Who is the other?

4. Name any Australian play.

5. Which country in the world produces more carbon dioxide per capita than any other?

6. President George Bush is Prime Minister Howard’s: A: Best Buddy; B: Intellectual equal; C: Favourite dinner party conversation topic; D: All of the above.

7. Australian troops went to fight a war in Iraq because: A: The majority of Australians wanted it; B: John Howard ‘took an executive decision’ and overruled all the tenets of a democracy because he knows what’s good for us; C: They had nothing else to do; D: the political situation in the Middle East was critically and significantly important to a minor country on the other side of the world.