Just Because You're Paranoid.......

I was going to slip a quick post in here apologising for the series of Star Chamber Files that has just ended. It was a rotten series and was going nowhere so that’s why I ended it abruptly. Of course, I tried to let you know briefly what was supposed to happen. I didn’t want you to think you were going to miss out on something really good and by doing that I managed to end the series in a far better way than was originally intended (at least, I thought so).

Apropos (don’t you just love the word ‘apropos’? I used to think it was similar to ‘après-ski’ except it was something you did after taking a dump) communicating with my public – that’s you – I took the advise of our local bloggerboss, Lin Hall of Cedargroveview, and added a sitemeter gizmo to my blog. If you scroll down to the bottom of the first page (yes, aaaaall the way to the bottom) you will see this little green and black logo. If you click on it you will be taken to a CIA site in America where you can see all sorts of information about who visits the blog etc. You can find out who the visitors are, where they are, photos of them picking their nose or taking a shower (don’t worry – I was making that up). But you can get quit a bit of information.

If you click on the individual visitor boxes you will be taken to another screen with details like IP address, (what the fuck is that?) resolution of the computer screen used by the visitor, version of browser and a general location. For instance, one of my regular visitors (the second one of the two regulars) is identified as gov.au and when I click on that I can see it’s someone from the Logan Council network (G’day, how’s things over there?).

There are other bits of info like the time of the visit but nothing to identify the individual. Having said that, I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t take much more information to identify the actual work-station used and, knowing what time it was used, you could make a fair guess at the identity of the user (that could be YOU).

The reason I’m telling you this is not to worry you but to warn you. Which brings me to my main point. How anonymous are we these days and why all the desperate need to wire up every home with broadband? I mean, in our part of the world we have been desperately trying to get the beautiful little hospital at Beaudesert up and running properly, our water infrastructure is still piss poor when you consider the number of new people moving in and most of the roads are real ball breakers with pot holes you could lose a prime mover in. There must be situations like this all over Australia and, instead of fixing these potentially life-threatening things as a matter of priority, we are going to spend 42 billion dollars on getting a fibre optic broadband link into every home. Why???

I know King Rupert 1st has been pushing for very high speed broadband so he can get every Australian locked into Foxtail and Sky TV but it looks like a real piss-take if the Australian tax payer has to provide the means for Rupe to rip them off. And then, for fucks sake, we will probably sell the infrastructure to him in five years time for possibly 10% of what it cost to build.

And what about Telstra’s take on this? They were so arrogant they wanted to contribute fuck-all to the cost of broadband. They just dicked around with their proposals as though they had a God given right to just take and never give. I don't think Telstra want to build a broadband network. I think they just want it given to them so they can sit down with Murdoch and bleed it white.

Can someone PLEASE tell me what, apart from providing King Rupert’s super, is the desperate, for-God’s-sake-we-will-all-die-if-we-don’t-do-this reason for the building of a broadband network? Go on – give me some reason to think we aren’t just making a thing that serves no other purpose than to give our free market something to obsess about - even if the thing in itself is pointless, a bit like the abstract Widget products that always featured in spreadsheet tutorials.

To me it makes as much sense as being told we all just have to have a life sized artificial, biodegradable blue cow in our backyards. It’s the 21st century thing to do and boy, are you going to look a prick if you don’t have one. The blue cow would serve the same economic purpose as broadband. It would just be a means to ensure the pointless circulation and recirculation of wealth according to a set of rules only the wealthy understand. I just don’t get it - so I’ll probably die.

Oh, don’t get me started! Back to sitemeter before I blow a gasket. During the last part of the Star Chamber Files I mentioned a COMPLETLY UNTRUE and TOTALLY IMAGINARY scenario where CSIRO accidentally invents a dooms day chemical pesticide. Imagine my surprise the next day when I checked out sitemeter to see if anyone had visited my new post and I found there had been 10 visitors. TEN! That’s a record for me, I usually only get two and one of them is me. Even more surprising was that the greatest percentage of visitors logged in from the CSIRO. It’s true, check it yourself, just click on the logo and look up visitor details. What is going on here?

The most innocent explanation would be if one of my regulars had, say, a brother-in-law who worked at CSIRO. My regular sent him an email saying, “I didn’t know your mob was into chemical warfare research, Ho Ho – read this.” followed by the url of my post. The brother-in-law checked out the post and got onto his mates at CSIRO saying,

“Look what this prick has written. Um….we didn’t, did we?”

Or it could be something far more sinister. Some of the visitors on sitemeter cannot be identified at all. Everything is “unknown”. One of the “unknowns” was visiting from North America but that was all that sitemeter could tell me. So just maybe the following might be a possibility.


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CIA Agent 2: Hello, Pentagon? Put me through to Admiral Cogzugger please. Hi Admiral, Agent 2 here. This may be nothing but our ThreatScan has flagged something from Australia. It’s just a crappy little thing blogwise but it mentions a project from the 1970’s to load high-tox pesticide onto a British Blue Streak missile. The blog also claims the project originated with the Australian CSIRO.

Admiral Cogzugger: Fuck! I thought that was dead and buried. Look, get on to Mick at ASIO. Tell him to take care of this asshole.

CIA Agent 2: Uh..sure Admiral. When you say ‘take care of the asshole’ do you mean like ‘take care of the asshole’?

Admiral Cogzugger: The fuck do I care! Just take care of it Jim.

CIA Agent 2: Sure, Admiral.



LATER.



CIA Agent 2: Hi, Mick. Hows tricks?

ASIO Agent 796: Fine, Jimo. Good to hear from you, what can I do you for mate?

(The CIA agent gives the ASIO man the details about the blog and explains the problem.)

ASIO Agent 796: Just looking it all up now, Jimo mate. Shit, I’ll be glad when we get a decent broadband connection. Ah…got it. Okay….yeah….yeah…..yeah. Well, Jimo the prick is a nobody and probably got onto this by accident but we’ll shove a bit of a shock up his arse. If that doesn’t work…….I can see he takes pills for just about every disease known to man so a quick alteration in his pharmacy files and we could get the hearse rolling in a couple of days - tops. In the meantime, mate, I’ll have a yarn with my contact at CSIRO to see how close our little blogging dick-head is to the monkey’s nuts.

CIA Agent 2: Good man. See you around Mick.

ASIO Agent 796: Uh…..just before you go Jimo mate. I was sort of wondering….you know mate…. when will your Brisbane field office be putting on the next ‘special party’ if you know what I mean mate. We poor fucks in ASIO are lucky to get a Big Mac from our lousy mob so we really look forward to a bit of a beano with you guys.

CIA Agent 2: Sure, sure Mick. Not a problem. I’ll get on to Brisbane and get an invite sent right out to you and your lovely wife.

ASIO Agent 796: Well……not the wife, actually Jimo mate. Last time you gave me the low-down and set me up with………..you know mate.

CIA Agent 2: Right on Mick! A fast little filly with real good legs huh?

ASIO Agent 796: Actually Jimo…if it’s all the same to you, mate, a certain big black one would be nice.

CIA Agent 2: Yeah, okay Mick. You ASIO guys sure like to win big on Eagle Farm Race Day don’t ya? 100 to 1 on Black Night. It’s as good as past the post. Take care Mick; see you in the CIA marquee.

ASIO Agent 796: Bonzer Jimo mate.

CIA Agent 2 (after hanging up): Fuck-wit.

ASIO Agent 796 (after hanging up): Cunto.



LATER.



ASIO Agent 796: CSIRO? Professor Marco Gelato thanks.

Prof. Marco: Hello.

ASIO Agent 796: Hi, Marco-o, it’s Micko from ASIO. Just phoning my old mate at the CSIRO to check a few things out.

Prof. Marco: Micko, great to hear from you. Hows the gang? Haven’t seen any of you since the last Uni reunion night.

ASIO Agent 796: Good, Marco-o. All except Robo of course.

Prof. Marco: Robo? The guy who was always dropping his pants and sitting on the photocopier? Christ, I think every female who ever went to that university has a signed picture of Robo’s arse and bollocks. What’s wrong with him?

ASIO Agent 796: Testicular and rectal cancer. Died last week.

Prof. Marco: Ah, tough shit.

ASIO Agent 796: I suppose it must have been. But that’s not why I called. You’ve been with CSIRO for a long time and I was wondering if you knew anything about a sort of Dooms Day pesticide that might have been developed by CSIRO in the 1970’s.

Prof. Marco: Of course. Pocahydradiatedchlorocyafine. It was the next step up from Agent Orange and we were calling it Agent Pale Shade Of Lilac. Deadly stuff. We buried it with a bloody long spade. What makes you ask?



LATER



Prof. Marco: General Bruce please……..Hi General, it’s Professor Marco Gelato, CSIRO. Do you remember a pesticide the army thought might come in handy back in the 1970’s. It was called Agent Pale Sha……….Yeah, that’s the one. Could you tell me what you actually did with it?……………Fifty gallon drum, okay…………on top of a blue streak? But how?………lashed up with fence wire. Okaaaaay. Where is it now? Oh shit! I’ll get back to you General.



LATER



Prof. Marco: Put me through to Agent 796 please…………Micko? Get on to the pharmacy – fast!

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So, I will be watching sitemeter over the next few days and I will know if you all suddenly disappear it’s because you’re coming for me. But as soon as I get a sniff of an assassin or see someone that looks even slightly like Matt Damon or Daniel Craig, I’m blowing the whistle.

My only difficulty is, I know who I’m blowing the whistle ON but I haven’t a fucking clue who to blow the whistle AT.