Senator Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks Party

In the lead up to Australia’s September election, many Australians may give thought to why Julian Assange is sheltering in a foreign embassy rather than an Australian one, and realize there is something wrong with a government that fails to protect one of its own citizens. Not only has Australia’s government failed to assist Julian Assange, they have willingly supported his persecutor. Australia’s foreign minister, Senator Bob Carr has been a willing servant of a foreign power since his student days in the 1970’s when he provided the US embassy with intelligence about the internal affairs of his Labor Party. Whether that designates him a foreign spy is open to question, but what is beyond question is that Australia’s foreign policy is made in Washington DC. While most Australians take pride in their country being America’s deputy sheriff in the Pacific, at least a fifth of the population would prefer Australia to stand up to Big Brother and act independently. And this 20% is likely to vote for the WikiLeaks Party at this September’s election. The newly registered WikiLeaks Party has the best chance to break Australia’s political mould in a generation. The WikiLeaks Party will succeed for the following reasons:

1. Julian Assange is sincere. Few people believe he is guilty of anything except telling the truth.
2. The WikiLeaks Party is attracting highly intelligent, highly articulate and many potentially influential people to their cause. This party is not a collection of dope smoking greenies or hillbilly rednecks. The WikiLeaks Party membership has the potential to become a formidable intellectual force that can run rings round the self-serving careerists currently discrediting Australian politics.
3. Julia to Julian. The stench of corruption presently choking Labor and Julia Gillard’s lame duck government is decidedly on the public’s nose. The only thing stopping more Labor members jumping ship is the Liberal’s leader. Tony Abbot’s arrogance will help many voters switch to WikiLeaks rather than vote Liberal.
4. The Green’s are wilting. The Green’s Party media savvy founder Bob Brown was a rare beast in Australian politics; charismatic and sincere. His departure started a decline in the Greens Party, which has lost around a third of its support in local elections since then. The Greens Party replaced the Australian Democrats and the WikiLeaks Party could easily replace the Greens.
5. A party needs to win 14.3% to win a Senate seat in Australia in its own right. WikiLeaks Party should pick up preferences from the micro parties, but also the Greens. Today’s opinion polls show the party would easily win without support, but with other preferences will win easier.

A politician once said ‘If it’s not on TV it didn’t happen’. Establishment parties and their beneficiaries in the mainstream media will do everything they can to firstly starve the WikiLeaks Party of media oxygen and then discredit the party. Every political organization has a random member who puts their foot ‘in it’ and the WikiLeaks Party will no doubt encounter a hiccup which will be blown out of all proportion by the media in an orchestrated smear campaign. But this time, the mud won't stick.

Australians can no longer dismiss politicians as being ‘all the same’. Julian Assange is a political refugee sheltering in the Ecudorian embassy because he has told nothing but the truth and has paid a very high price for it. Australia’s government and opposition have done nothing to help him but in September the ballot box can set him free. Australia’s greedy, selfish, corrupt and incompetent politicians are about to get the biggest and most desperately deserved boot up their backsides in living memory, courtesy of the WikiLeaks Party. A country gets the government’s they deserve, and Australia deserves better.

Australia’s film industry: flogging a dead horse?

Since 2003 the Australian tax payer has donated approximately $1.5 billion to filmmakers to produce films few people want to see. While most of this money has gone directly to Hollywood Studios a sizable chunk goes towards genuinely local films which statistically have a 97% chance of flopping at the box office. The latest box office disaster is Save YourLegs, a $5 million comedy that grossed a paltry $250,000 million in its first week and will be lucky to top $1 million when TV sales and DVD’s are thrown in. The Australian Greens political party’s solution is to increase the subsidies. They are wrong. Subsidies are part of the problem. 

Australia’s film industry enjoyed a heyday in the silent era but by the time talkies arrived Hollywood had snuffed out the local industry. Peter Weir’s 1975 success Picnic at Hanging Rock was the start of a revival which peaked in 1994 when two hits Muriel’s Wedding and Prescilla: Queen of the Desert won the hearts of the nation. That year Australian films accounted for 20% of box office takings. Times have changed. Today the Federal Government’s funding body Screen Australia is so embarrassed about their box office results they appear to be absent from their website. 

We live in strange times when Film Ink chirps ‘Australian films at the box office in 2012... round off an impressive list of Australian success stories in 2012.’ Their article fails to mention that all the ‘success stories’ they celebrate, except The Sapphires, failed to break even. 

What wrong with Australia’s film industry?

1. Film financing death. Few film producers outside Hollywood or Bollywood know how to make a profit from film making so consequently few private investors will fund films unless they have an ulteria motive. Ironically Australia’s mining industry, which largely bank rolled the 2011 hit Red Dog, dished out their cash to win hearts and minds rather than make extra profits. However they did both.
2. Government involvement. Because private investors largely shy away from film, Australia’s film industry has persuaded the government to take up the job. Like most other things the government does, it does it badly. Australia’s Federal and State film funding bodies don’t seem to have a clue about picking good films. Scripts with politically correct themes such as feminist stories or ones about Aboriginals are hugely popular with funding bodies, but not with audiences.
3. Overproduction. Australia has produced around 1000 films in the last 20 years which is about an average of 50 a year. Approximately half do not get a general cinema release. A few boutique films, such as Being Venice, are unlikely to ever go beyond a few exclusive festivals.
4. Quality. Australian films are extremely expensive to make and typically use the best cameras, have access to excellent post production facilities and actors, yet are still regarded as second-rate by audiences. The quality of the original story seems to be the biggest drawback with the overuse of tired themes and predictable characters.
5. Australians are increasingly international and cosmopolitan and appear to lack an appetite for Australian stories. Australian audiences want the same generic entertainment products that the rest of the world wants. They want Hollywood films.
6. Hollywood film studios lack a US tax payer funded subsidy scheme, so instead they get foreign tax payers to bankroll their films. For example Australia’s tax payers financed The Great Gatsby and Wolverine II, yet no audience will identify them with Australia. The Australian government spends more money on subsiding big budget Hollywood films than in creating a genuine Australian industry.

Is there a Solution? Yes.

1. Abolish Screen Australia and all State government filming organisations. When the cash strapped British Government axed the UK Film Council with effect from 2011, the industry predicted the end of the world. However the sector survives, but is more commercial. What has died is the army of ‘experts’ who survived by receiving grants and handouts to write, consult on and produce hundreds of terrible British films that lacked an audience. Italy doesn’t have an equivalent of Screen Australia and yet has an industry. If Australia axed Screen Australia, audiences wouldn’t notice a thing and the reduced number of films made here would be more concerned with matching audience tastes.
2. Stop subsidising Hollywood. Australia should axe the tax incentive schemes that temporarily attract big budget Hollywood productions to Australia. Films such as The Great Gatsby contribute nothing permanent to the industry here. Money can be better spent.
3. Box Office subsidy. Subsidize genuine Australian films at the box office. Instead of subsidising films to be made which might or might not have an audience, how about provide a direct movie ticket subsidy at the cinema. For each ticket sold, a funding body could partially pay the ticket price. Imagine each real Australian film was $6 cheaper than others. So cinema goers could go to the Dendy Cinema and see Iron Man 3 for $14 or Save Your Legs for $8. This would do more to promote Australian films than any other scheme developed and also help encourage commercial films, rather than art house films to be made.
4. Emphasis on Commercial films. Assuming Screen Australia isn’t abolished, it at least needs a huge boot up its backside. It should operate more like a business than a charity. An emphasis on politically correct art house films should be replaced by commercially successful films. If Australia had a genuinely viable and profitable film industry it wouldn’t need tax payer funding.
5. Direct Investment. Film producers typically create a limited life enterprise called a Special Purposes Vehicle to produce their film. Once the film is finished and all the government subsidies received the film company is closed and its assets rolled over into another enterprise. Considering tax payer funds have made these films possible it is only logical the government should receive equity for its money. If Australia’s tax payers funded, say 25% of the The Great Gatesby, they should own 25% of the Special Purposes Vehicle company used to create the film and also receive 25% of any profits which might be made.

Screen Australia and tax payer funding is holding the film industry back rather than propelling it forward. If Screen Australia and the tax subsidies were abolished and the saved money redirected towards investing in film companies directly and subsidising ticket sales, then movie attendance would increase, bad films would decrease and Australia would develop a sustainable film industry. The Australian film industry is currently stagnant and floating aimlessly. If we don’t change direction we will head exactly where we are pointing; nowhere.

Fair Use of Copyright Material

'Propaganda' - Pyongyang Style

If YouTube was a race, gold would go to South Korea with Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ easily topping one billion hits, while silver would go to North Korea for it's documentary ‘Propaganda’ currently sitting at 1.3 million hits. This hard hitting expose on capitalist public relations techniques takes a pot shot at almost every aspect of the Western system and scores many direct hits. ‘Propaganda’ is either a damning indictment of 21^st Century culture or the best piece of propaganda in a generation.

The 96 minute expose currently has a score of 8.1 out of 10 on IMDb and was loaded onto YouTube on 18 May 2012, claiming to have been smuggled out of the world’s last Stalinist state by North Korean agents posing as defectors to Seoul. The reality lies on the other side of the world in one of the world’s freest societies; New Zealand. In 2003 the now 42 year old Christchurch based film producer/writer/director Slavko Martinov came up with the idea and spent the next eight years writing, researching and editing the masterpiece in secret. He spent literally thousands of hours reviewing TV shows and other documentaries to find the perfect accompaniment to the narration. In the footsteps of Justin Beiber who claims footage was stolen to create his viral music clip ‘Beauty and a Beat’, so to Slavko created a mythical backstory about how his mocumentary supposedly reached the West. While no one took Justin Beiber’s claims seriously few can believe ‘Propaganda’ is not the brainchild of Pyongyang. The New Zealand Police’s anti-terrorism unit monitored the production of the film and questioned the producer while South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) refuse to believe their nuclear powered brothers in the north were not involved in the project. Eugene Chang, the New Zealand resident who acts as the psychologist narrator in the film has been shunned by the local Korean community and has even been refused communion from his local Korean Catholic church. He has also been accused of being a North Korean agent and threatened with espionage charges in South Korea. Eugene Chang denies being a communist but is a performer and said ‘if an actor plays Hitler it doesn’t mean they’re a Nazi.’

A Propaganda film about Propaganda

‘Propaganda’ is claimed by its director as a mocumentary yet is so cutting and scathing of the West’s Public Relations (PR) industry that it is hard to find anything funny in the film at all. The film’s comprehensive coverage of the history and abuse of PR by Western governments is supported by often incontestable facts and footage from the mainstream media. The film’s revelations are sobering and thought provoking. The extreme example being the ease with which the public has been tricked into false wars, particularly the West's invasion of Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

‘Propaganda’ claims that PR is a recipe that has been perfected to control the lives and shopping habits of the West. The public are hypnotised into a complacent sense of wellbeing and dazed by a cocktail of celebrities, fashion, glamour and rampant consumerism fuelled by mesmerising television, music and video games. So captivated by the glitz of PR’s sensationalism and trivia the public allow themselves to go along with whatever their ‘puppet masters’ decide for them, including wars and false flag attacks to mould public opinion. The film fires its heaviest artillery at some of the West’s most popular brands and famous celebrities. Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson are all singled out for special criticism together with the usual targets including Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Australia’s former prime minister John Howard who are all labelled war-criminals, degenerates and cowards.

‘Propaganda’ and Israel’s Mossad

Seven people were involved in the making of ‘Propaganda’ but four of the team are frightened to publicise their involvement in the project. Slavko Martinov was the producer and Mike Kelland the co-producer. Eugene Chang plays the narrator. Other crew members don’t want to be identified because they expect Slavko ‘will get a bullet from Mossad’. This is not as crazy as it sounds as Israel’s ‘CIA’ has a long history of operating in New Zealand. New Zealand passports make great covers for Mossad agents. In 2003 a Mossad ring was uncovered stealing New Zealand passports and in 2011 Mossad agents were killed in the Christchurch earthquake downloading the New Zealand Police database. ‘Propaganda’ singles out Israel for harsh criticism so it seems reasonable that a state which understands the value of controlling its media image might like to silence a critic. ‘Propaganda’ made it to Amsterdam’s IDFA Film Festival in November 2012 and in 2013 the Israeli film community will have an opportunity to demonstrate their openness to criticism by selecting the film to their prestigious DocAviv documentary film festival. Paradoxically, despite Israel's willingness to silence opposition with a bullet, it remains the most tolerant society in the Middle East, despite its many political flaws.

‘Propaganda’ and a fatwa

This documentary makes repeated attacks on both organised religion and the Old Testament God himself. Judaism, Catholicism, Christianity and Pentecostal television evangelists are all singled out for special criticism while Islam is notably absent. Slavko admits that Islam was deliberately excluded from criticism because he ‘didn’t want a fatwa issued against me.’ Ironically, because the film does not criticise Muslims its anti-materialism theme might win it fans in the Islamic world.  

Future of ‘Propaganda’

Producing a film that attacks the political and economic basis of the capitalist world is usually not very good for career prospects, yet Slavko Martinov’s ‘Propaganda’ has done such a meritorious job at it he deserves credit for both his bravery and documentary skill. For most people the film is a pill too bitter to swallow, but its thought provoking potential make ‘Propaganda’ essential viewing for everyone who owns a television set. Slavko admits he ‘doesn’t expect to get any money back from this film’ and goes on to say jokingly ‘this makes me the worst producer in the world. The first two letters of Propaganda are P.R. My intention for the film was for it to be an antidote to the giant doses of bullshit we’re fed by PR’. It certainly does that.

2013 Crystal Ball - Recession and PaperlinX

Morningstar provides premium investment advice to Australia’s financial elite and I received a free subscription to their service during the year. Their glowing appraisal of Facebook one day before it debuted, then tanked, on the NASDAQ (18 May 2012) confirmed what I suspected about Morningstar; a bunch of well connected wankers who know little more than other well informed people. Investors who took Morningstar’s advice have lost 60% of their investment. Australia’s investment experts aren’t very good at predicting what will occur tomorrow, let alone a year, so here goes; here’s my attempt. My track record is as good as any of theirs.

History lesson

During WWI Germany paid for 85% of its military expenditure by an elaborate ponzi scheme. Like modern America the government could not face reality and increase taxes to match actual spending so it issued ‘Bonds’. Patriotic Germans purchased these bonds and their Government quickly spent it. As the money ran out they issued more bonds. To pay for the second round of bonds Germans borrowed money, using their first bonds as collateral. The third, fourth, fifth... rounds of bonds were paid by borrowing against earlier bonds. This giant ponzi scheme came unstuck when Germany lost the war but it took four more years before the currency totally imploded and consumers started shopping with wheelbarrows of cash. It took 18 months to effectively write off the old currency and begin anew. I see a similar situation occurring in the US and Europe.

In 2008 when the global economy, run by the same sort of people that run Morningstar, began to collapse, governments pumped money into the banking system by selling Bonds, which the government purchased by creating new money. In 1920’s Germany this meant physically printing money, today it occurs with a few computer key strokes, but the results are similar. More money chasing the same amount of goods or pumped into the same number of companies on the stock exchange. More money chasing the same amount of goods or investment opportunities equals inflation. The 10% rise in the ASX200 since July, despite a deterioration in company performance, seems to me to be indicative of inflation. While most Australian companies are not improving, their share price is rising purely because there is more liquidity and the money has to be invested somewhere. Australia’s compulsory superannuation scheme has generated $1.4 trillion for funds managers to play with and they are compelled to put it into the shares of unsatisfactory companies, purely because there is nowhere else to send it. Eventually the share price of profitless companies needs to collapse and it deserves to happen soon.

The Danish investment bank Saxo predicts the final meltdown in the Western economy during 2013 precipitated by Spain. Euro bankers have been unwilling to let Greece declare itself bankrupt and write off their ‘debts’ the way Germany was forced to in 1923. Instead of cutting Greece free and allowing it to collapse then rebuild, the European Union has tenaciously resisted turning off the life support system, but Saxo Bank believes when Spain defaults this year, as they expect, the dominos will finally fall. Saxo Bank predicts the DAX sharemarket index will drop 33% and the oil price will nosedive to $50 a barrel.

Saxo Bank were ridiculed for their doomsday economic forecast, by the same type of people who recommended buying Facebook shares (Morningstar). The reality remains that the US, European and Australian economies have delayed recession by creating new money and perhaps they can keep doing this for another year but the house of cards will fall eventually. Western economies will soon reap the harvest their ‘voodoo economic’ policies have sown. Countries that transfer their manufacturing industries to China and India then rely on services and consumption to drive their economies forward deserve to underperform. The Western world cannot continue to keep its head above water with debt forever. While the US, Europe and Australia disregard the fundamentals of economics (balancing the books) other countries like China, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Russia are doing significantly better by being fiscally responsible. In short, the West deserves another recession this year.

PaperlinX

Since 2000 the Australian based paper merchant PaperlinX has gone from blue chip to burnt crisp. The company’s board, led by the perennial failure Harry Boon and Toby Marchant were leading the global company to certain oblivion. Shareholder agitation which resulted in a successful coup however has come too late to save the once giant company.

Encore magazine announced in their last edition of 2012 that it would be their final in a printed form. From 2013 the nice magazine will be digital only. Encore’s decision, which is being replicated the world over spells certain death for PaperlinX. The world has a surplus of paper merchants and PaperlinX have demonstrated they are behind the ball every time, irrespective of who is at the helm. Profit margins on paper are shrinking and volumes are declining. The ‘new’ PaperlinX recently informed the ASX their new UK boss, David Allen would require a base salary of £450,774 to perform his functions. On top of his minimum wage are a set of lucrative incentives to motivate him to do his job. His obscene salary, paid for by a company teetering on the brink of insolvency, seems identical to the ‘old’ PaperlinX of Harry Boon. Other company changes, such as rebranding, are hardly rocket science. Any Marketing 101 student would suggest a similar strategy. Mediocre decisions continue to be celebrated as brilliance at PaperlinX. Clearly at least one large paper merchant needs to exit the crowded and declining European market and I expect it to be PaperlinX this year. Instead of orderly liquidating the business and returning the company’s assets to shareholders, the company is more likely to collapse in a heap as other businesses associated with Harry Boon have done recently, returning nothing to shareholders.

So my crystal ball has storm clouds in it. The stock market is little more than a giant casino. All gamblers with ‘a system’ eventually lose. The giant ponzi scheme of bonds propping up the US and European economy deserves to collapse soon. It could come as easily as a Chinese refusal to buy more bonds or the assassination of Hamid Kazai. While the conditions for a collapse are presently there, it could just as easily be delayed by more bonds and money creation. Either way I expect PPX to be little more than a memory next year.

Sony EX1 Help Guide

The Sony EX1 camera was released in 2007 and as with all new products a few improvements were quickly identified so following models of the camera were called the EX1-R. Essentially there is almost no difference between the two. The EX1 is a fixed lens camera. Basically the same camera with interchangeable lenses is the Sony EX3. The following is a summary of the EX1-R's instructions and are intended to help you get the most of the camera.

Sony EX1 - the basics

3 rings 1. Focus

             2. Zoom

             3. Aperture

Zebra –                         shows over exposure

Peaking –                      shows what’s in focus

Shot Transition –           pre-programmed positions (Focus pulling stationary items)

Status –                          Menu main pages. Use jog dial or joystick to navigate

Picture Profile –             Shooting conditions/styles pre-set

Record Review –           Replays last clip. Set to CLIP

Expanded Focus –       Doubles picture size in monitor for focusing

Steady shot –                 Stabilizes for hand held

Video Format –             PAL 1080 25p best

                                      720 size is only one that allows slow motion

                                      i = interlaced            p = progressive

Exposure control -       changing aperture changes depth of field

                                    1.9 has sharpest/narrowest depth of the field (close-ups)

·      Iris (aperture, f-stops)

·      Shutter speed

·      Gain

·      Neutral Density Filters

Gain -                                     Set camera to    L            - 3dB

                                                                        M            0 dB

                                                                        H            6 dB

Shutter speed -             24p – 1/48

                                    30p – 1/60

                                    25p -  1/50

                                    60i -  1/60 or off

                                    50i – 1/50 or off

Shutter Mode            -            Speed (standard shutter speed)

                                    Angle

                                    ECS (Extended Clear Scan) changed to match flickering

                                    SLS (Slow shutter) Allows filming in low light without Gain

Neutral Density Filter 1            -               reduces light by 3 f stops

Neutral Density Filter 2            -            reduces light by 6 f stops (bright sunshine)

Camera Iris best at F4 – F2.8 so ND Filters used to allow filming to remain in these ranges. Shot Transitions at F1.9

Iris – Auto Iris bad. Only good for fast moving objects. Manuel better

Iris setting -      1. Slide Iris to Auto. Allow camera to decided what’s best: slide back to Manual. Zoom into main subject

2. Have Zebra on. Default is 70%, but reset to 95% and change to Blue. Look for brightest part of scene and keep setting until Zebra appears.

Focusing.         AF only for moving objects

                        Peaking shows which parts are in focus. Blue/low is good seeting

                        Focus in Expanded Focus

Audio              -20 to -10 dB are the ideal peaking levels for sound

Manual            Sound is recorded according to volume control. Check STATUS Page 2 for volume levels

Audio Input     Wind Filter ON: for using Internal microphone

Time Code      Rec Run or Clock mode are the most useful

Shot Transition            Features that can be set in A or B

·        Zoom

·        Focus

·        Iris

·       Gain

·       Shutter speed

·      White Balance

·      Color Matrix

·      Detail

To set A or B. Menu ÞShot Transition ÞSoft Trans (least jarring)

Start Time means a delay before transition occurs

Press Shot A when settings complete to save them

Use Remote attachment to press record to stop camera shake

A and B settings wiped when camera power turned off

Assign Buttons             -            17 choices can be programmed

Marker sets camera perimeters and guidelines

ATW – Auto Trace White balance (Bad)

BRT Disp – Assign 2 Default. Used with Color Cards

Histogram                                     Assign 3 (Good)

Lens Info                                     Provides good Depth of Field info. Assign 1 (Good)

Last Clip Delete                          program to Assign 4 (Good)

Slow Motion/Quick Motion/Interval Record (Time lapse)

Slow only available in 720 and Quick is limited

If you choose 30p as video format any frame rate over 30 will be slow

S+Q does not work in interlace

Sound not recorded

Interval Rec (Slow Motion). Interval time ranges from 1 second (clouds) to 24 hours

Ex Slow Shutter varies the light. 16 frames is good. At setting 64: 64 times more light reaches the sensor so good for night filming

When filming with movement – effect will be a blur. 16 frames during day will give a good traffic blur effect

Frame Recording/Stop by Stop animation

Frame Rec Þ Number of Frames Þ Shows how many recorded at each episode of filming Þ ON. When you press record only the number of frames you selected will be taken

Timecode  Clock ON

White Balance/Color Balance                        EVERY NEW SCENE RE-BALANCE

·      ATW bad

·      Preset is set at 3200K (indoor incandescent)

·      Select A or B Þ Put color card in frame Þ zoom in Þ put exposure to automatic Þ press White Balance button Þ wait Þ camera will tell you when finished

Picture Profile. Separate menu system accessed by pressing button (back next to yellow jack)