Scarier than Skynet - the corporations are winning

I've posted more than a couple of times here about advancements in military robot technology that make me a little concerned (and probably make me look like a tin foil hat wearer but that's neither here nor there)

This news story from the US though leaves me seriously troubled.

WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.

Maybe I'm missing the finer detail but it seems to me that corporations in the U.S are now free to spend as much money as they can raise on making sure that the people they like get elected. They can potentially spend billions of dollars if they choose on tv advertising and all the other costs of campaigning - money that they have never before been able to kick in.

The most telling part of this case for me is the almost Orwellian name of the body who brought it to the court - Citizens United. ( funnily enough, one of the anti-internet lobby groups in the GTA universe is Citizens United Negating Technology - although it just doesn't seem so funny any more)
This isn't going to end well.

Update: got some more info that reveals that things could be worse -

"The judges also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, enacted in 2001, which barred union and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

The court's ruling leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions and did not touch a ban on unlimited donations from corporations and unions to political parties."

(from The Age)

Still, there's a whole lot of wrong about this. Supporters might (disingenuously) argue that this is a matter of free speech but if you have the money to ensure that yours is the only voice heard over and over and over, what does that do to the free speech of everyone else?

How about some fair speech?

Breaking news Breaking Bad great

So, sure - Breaking Bad has already finished its second series and the lead actor Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) has already won two Best Actor emmys for his role in the show  but until last night I hadn't seen it so in Couch Media world, I guess this passes for breaking news.

It was just the pilot that I saw - possibly the hardest episode of a series to make because you have just under an hour (or half an hour) to set up your premise, introduce your characters and give viewers a reason to come back. Tick, tick and tick.

In a nutshell, Cranston plays high school chem teacher Walter White who is struggling to make a living and then discovers that he has inoperable lung cancer. Cheery start right. (Did I mention that he also has a mildly disabled son?) After learning just how much money is to be made in the production of crystal meth (ice), he decides to go into business, with the intention of setting up his family for the future. Despite the premise, it's not a depressing story - it's real (but not too real) and Cranston's White is a genuinely interesting and likeable character. (And it's always good to see kinda-nerds being a bit badass)

It's also won the Emmy for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series for the last two years - one was for the episode that I saw last night - guess it helps to have a good editor.

Pay Attention

A great spiel about why if you're not using technology in teaching, you're losing your students.

Countries with the Southern Cross on their flags

I've seen the stars of the Southern Cross painted, tattooed, on stickers and hand drawn in texta across the persons and vehicles of any number of  nationalistic young people in recent years. Personally I think these kinds of displays of nationalism - while often made by perfectly decent people - are a little American - over the top and tinged with a kind of intolerant tribalism.

Saying that everyone who feels proud of this country is an ignorant bogan or redneck is to oversimplify things - there is a lot to still celebrate about Australia (something that the joyless, overcritical wowsers on both sides of politics forget sometimes). The things that I like most about Oz is the laid back but practical nature of how we do things. The whole quiet achiever thing. This strikes me as the greatest sign of confidence - not needing to jump up and down and wave your arms around.

The rise of the Southern Cross as a sign of national pride is extra puzzling because it's a constellation that can be seen from most places in the Southern Hemisphere. Four other countries like it so much that they have it on their flags. You could argue pretty easily that the Federation star, with its 7 points representing the states and territories is a more distinctive symbol of national pride. (Let's overlook our colonial master's flag still perched up in the top corner - even the Barmy Army has been heard to say "get your shit stars off our flag")

The Eureka flag - which has been adopted by a range of groups from trade unions to white supremacists - could also be ripe for reclamation. Of course, it would be better if it was accomplished by some kind of meaning popular movement against unfair oppression - but like that's going to happen.

I've got nothing against the Southern Cross itself - it's a good looking group of stars and handily can be used to find south without a compass - but it's not uniquely Australian.

Australia

Brazil

Brazil actually wins in the story about why the Southern Cross is on their flag. It represents the stars they saw on the morning of the 15th of November, 1889, the day the Republic of Brazil was declared. Each star on the flag represents one Brazilian state. On top of this,

the flag portrays them as they would be seen by an imaginary observer an infinite distance above Rio standing outside the firmament in which the stars are considered to be placed.(flagspot.net)

New Zealand

Papua New Guinea

Samoa

(images from Wikipedia and in the public domain)

Exciterrifying - Augmented ID

The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) has a video up of a prototype of a system for your phone that excites and terrifies me. In essence, you point your phone cam at someone (with an account set up presumably) and it displays on screen a range of info from their social networking footprint.

I'm excited because it's another step forward in this amazing digital era we find ourselves in, where the concepts of knowledge and information are being radically reimagined every other day and terrified (ok, perhaps not that extreme but it worked well with my exciterrify portmanteau) because of the potential for evil it displays. When you think about it though, face recognition has been around for a while and who knows what the powers that be are doing with that tech. 

Or, in their words:

Augmented ID is a TAT concept that visualizes the digital identities of people you meet in real life. With a mobile device and face recognition software from Polar Rose, Augmented ID enables you to discover selected information about people around you. All users control their own augmented appearance, by selecting the content and social network links they want show to others. Modifying your augmented ID is easier than fixing your hair in real life and, of course, TAT Cascades will make sure you look great!