In fact, I love the design of the new Foreign Affairs website so much I decided I’d subscribe to the magazine. They have a paywall in place and I was getting frustrated at not being able to read what sounded like the most interesting articles. Also, I don’t believe there’s some magical money-making machine that ensures good writing gets paid for. So I thought, you know what? I’ll do it. I’ll subscribe.

If you live in the U.S., a subscription to Foreign Affairs magazine costs US$32. If you live outside of North America you pay US$32 for a subscription and US$35 for delivery.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Printing is cheap these days and Australia is a long way from the United States. And US$67 is hardly the end of the world. But I don’t like paying for things I don’t need and I didn’t want the printed version of Foreign Affairs; I just wanted to be able to access the website. Surely something could be done. I thought my question was pretty straightforward:

Hi

I’m not sure who the right person to ask is. I’d like to subscribe to Foreign Affairs but I live in Australia.

The main reason that I want to subscribe is to have full access to the website. To subscribe with an Australian address will cost more in shipping than the cost of the subscription itself (currently US$35 v US$32).

Is it possible only to subscribe at the US price and simply not have the physical magazine shipped to me?

Cheers

Michael.

This was the response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We do not offer kindle subscription. Please contact Amazon.com for further assistance. If we can be of any other assistance, please let us know.

Thank you for subscribing to Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely,

Pete Stone Email Customer Service

Stellar job there, Pete. In three lines you managed to call me a girl, tell me to go and ask someone else for help subscribing to your magazine and then thank me for subscribing when my question was about how I could subscribe.

Still, I kept my cool:

Dear Pete

I’m not actually after a Kindle subscription; what I’d like to know is if there is some way to subscribe without having the magazine sent to Australia. I presume I could simply put a U.S. address in and send my issues to someone else but, in the interests of saving paper, I thought perhaps it would be possible to subscribe and simply have the magazine not sent.

Cheers

Michael.

The response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We are sorry, we do not offer digital subscriptions. If you wish to avail only a online subscription and no print version, please contact amazon.com.

Thank you for your interest in Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely, Scott Shelton Email Customer Service

Two things: (1) Seriously, when did Michael become a woman’s name? (2) What is it with you guys and Amazon?

I realise there’s a danger at extrapolating from personal experience. What happened to me is possibly a one-off. Certainly it’s not the cause of the decline in print media. But it’s hard not to see it as emblematic of a struggle for companies to adjust to the idea that people might want to pay for the content without the dead trees.

The Brainy Gamer Podcast

http://feeds.feedburner.com/brainygamerpodcast

Last year my schedule was chock-full of gaming podcasts but since the demise of 1UP I’ve managed to whittle it down to two. I started listening to the Brainy Gamer podcast over the New Year. New episodes don’t appear to come out on any schedule that I can see but if the three 1.5-hour long holiday episodes were anything to go by this is the podcast to listen to if you want intelligent analysis of the latest games.

Downloadable Content

http://feeds.penny-arcade.com/padlc/

The irregular podcast for the web comic Penny Arcade stays on the iPod. Artist Mike Krahulik and writer Jerry Holkins are sharp and witty observers on video gaming culture and their discussions of the issues that inspire their comic is as good–if not better–than the finished result. One wishes it were updated more often but I guess that’s what makes each new episode so special.

Front Page

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/frontpage.xml

Another one to return, the Front Page podcast is still the best 5-minute summary of the big stories of the day I’ve found. More than just the headlines you get a feel for what the story is about. It’s published relative to New York’s time zone so it’s about a half a day behind the news but I still find it useful for keeping up with what’s going on.

GWJ Conference Call

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/taxonomy/term/408/0/feed

New for 2009, the Gamers with Jobs Conference Call is the eponymous podcast for the Gamers with Jobs web site. Usually featuring four regulars, Shawn Andrich, Sean Sands, Julian Murdoch and Rob Borges, the production quality is top-notch and although the show is regular 90 minutes or so in length it never drags. Refreshingly the boys are as conversant about PC gaming as they are about the latest titles to hit the 360 and PS3 so I find it a great all-in-one replacement for 1UP Yours! and GFW Radio.

The Japan Considered Podcast

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JapanConsideredPodcast

Still on the iPod is Dr Robert C Angel’s podcast about Japanese domestic politics and international relations. Dr Angel retired from his teaching gig at the end of last year so my fingers are crossed he can keep to a weekly schedule. Even if he does miss the odd one it’s hard to blame him. He runs the Japan Considered Project for free and uses his considerable network of contacts to interview a number of Japan experts you’d rarely get to hear otherwise.

JapanesePod101.com

http://www.japanesepod101.com/wp-feed-audio.php

One of this year’s rookies, I started listening to JapanesePod101.com about six months ago. A new episode is published each weekday with a slightly confusing schedule. Monday is their newbie series, Tuesday is their beginner series, Wednesday alternates between their lower-intermediate series and an onamatopoeia class, Thursday alternates between their upper-intermediate series and a short audio blog entry about Japan, and Friday is a video lesson. The site operates on a freemium model and if you subscribe you get access to level-specific feeds. To be honest, it was better last year when a new episode of the Lower-Intermediate (my level) and Upper-Intermediate series came out every week but when you don’t pay any money it’s hard to complain.

New Yorker: Comment

http://feeds.newyorker.com/services/rssfeeds/comment_podcast.xml

A reading of the weekly comment article from the latest edition of the New Yorker returns in 2009. If you’re a little worried about how the New Yorker‘s signature blend of upper class wit and overall snootiness translates into audio form rest assured they have a rotating cast of three of the most posh-sounding announcers outside of the BBC and Classical FM.

New Yorker: The Policital Scene

http://feeds.newyorker.com/services/rss/feed/campaign_trail.xml

Presented by Dorothy Wickenden, the Political Scene is the New Yorker‘s version of Slate’s Political Gabfest. As you’d expect it’s a lot more focused and at only about half the length tends not to deal with as many topics of discussion. That said, it’s an excellent overview of the political comings and goings in Washington for that week and the calibre of their writers means it’s always interesting. New to the iPod but definitely staying.

Slate’s Spoiler Specials

http://www.slate.com/podcast/id/2144834/

One of the bevy of Slate podcasts that remain on my listening listen. Slate‘s film critic, Dana Stevens, continues to go where other reviewers fear to tread. This is the podcast that discusses movies without regard to spoilers and as such is better listened to after you’ve seen a film. Unfortunately given the delay between movies coming out in the US and their release in Japan I’ve got quite a backlog building up. Hopefully I can cut it down to a more manageable size when I return to Australia.

Slate Magazine Daily Podcast

http://www.slate.com/podcast/

Since 2008 Slate has expanded its podcasts to include the Culture Gabfest and the Big Money podcast. Both are excellent talkfests about popular culture and economics respectively. The Audio Book Club is still there, as is the Political Gabfest. When it’s not one of the regular longform podcasts, Dale Willman reads a popular story from the site.

The Gabfests, Big Money and the Audio Book Club are also podcast separately if that grabs your fancy.

The Talk Show

http://thetalkshow.net/index.xml

Dan Benjamin and John Gruber, Mac nerds extraordinaire, remain on the list into 2009. They still do some of the best deadpan banter and although they often stray from topic (last week was a 15-minute show entirely about gridiron) I never seem to mind (even when it’s entirely about gridiron).

University of Sydney Podcasts

http://www.usyd.edu.au/podcasts/2006/rss.xml

They don’t come around every week but the University of Sydney has some fantastic guest lecturers (as you’d expect) and some bright spark thought it was a shame that you had to actually be at the university to hear them. Sometimes they’re a little boring (the medical science one I couldn’t make it through) but for the most part they’re brilliant lecturers you’d normally have to pay good money to hear speak.

アクセス

http://www.tbsradio.jp/ac/index.xml

Although I didn’t include it on last year’s list I have been listening to TBS’s アクセス (Access) since 2007. It’s a Japanese language podcast about current affairs and politics in Japan. To be perfectly honest, I think I understand about 10% of what they say but since that’s up from 5% last year it’s something of an improvement. I still don’t understand what ガガンボン means, though.

So that’s who’s on there but who fell off the list?

• ABC Insiders I stopped listening after becoming frustrated at the lack of detailed analysis (and at Andrew Bolt).
• Background Briefing I couldn’t justify the time it took to listen to. Thirty minutes is a long time and too often it was about a topic in which I had little to no interest.
• Backstory I really miss this one but I really felt the time on the train would be more productive studying Japanese.
• EGM Live* I stopped listening to this before it morphed into 1UP Radio. All the presenters I liked departed and it wasn’t doing anything 1UP Yours! didn’t do better.
• GFW Radio Another 1UP podcast I stopped listening to before it was renamed. I’m sorry to say once Jeff Green and Shawn Elliot left there wasn’t a lot keeping me there.
• KCRW’s The Treatment The delay between a film’s release in the US and its release in Japan just made the backlog of these too long to ever get through.
• Newsmaker I can’t remember if I stopped listening or if they stopped podcasting. Either way, not a good sign.
• OpCast Too often it was about a topic I had no interest in or it really needed you to read the op-ed first. Since I listen to podcasts away from the Internet this isn’t an option for me.
• Slate Explainer Podcast Another one I was really sad to drop. Again, I wanted to focus on Japanese and truth be told I didn’t need to know any of this stuff.
• TalkCrunch I don’t know if they ever did fix that feed.
• This Week in Law This podcast had real promise but the level of preparation got to me after a while. Frequently guests were unable to answer questions because they didn’t have an opinion on the matter. Why are you there, then?
• 1UP Yours! It seems to have gone the way of the dodo since the sale of 1UP to UGO. And without Shane will it ever be the same?

Well that’s it for this year. What about you? What’re you listening to? (Yes, I am talking directly to you, Andrew.)

To my mind there’s always been something fundamentally honest about the way some conservatives don’t seem to care about other people. Why pretend you’re doing otherwise when really it all comes down to looking after Number 1? I can’t do that. When I’m not ignoring the plight of others I’m feeling bad about it. While members of the NRA sleep easily at night (possibly with a gun under their pillow) I lay awake, wracked by guilt.

Not too wracked, of course. This absorbs my attention for all of about three minutes before sleep comes and claims me. What guilt there is isn’t enough to motivate me to, you know, do something. I’m not being actively nasty, I suppose. I don’t spit on the poor. Or vegans. And I feel for them in that way that doesn’t actually require me to do anything concrete. But is that really feeling? And why don’t I do something? Why am I content to just lie awake in bed for a few minutes at night before eventually nodding off?

I can remember the question first intruding upon my consciousness during high school. Back then it was easier to explain why I wasn’t doing more. I was a kid after all; no one expects kids to do much about this type of thing. That’s why when they do they get featured on the news. I dimly recall resolving that it wasn’t always going to be like that. At some point I was going to start helping. It wasn’t clear to me exactly when this change was going to occur but I felt sure it was. The thing is I’m 25. I’ll be 26 by the end of the year. When am I going to start?

Being a hypocrite is a strange thing. It’s not like being a fire fighter or a policeman or a doctor. You tend to point that out to people. ‘Oh, hello. I’m Rui’s husband. I’m a lawyer.’ Sometimes you even make up business cards lest people forget exactly what it was you were. But being a hypocrite is sort of like the reverse. Other people point it out to you. ‘You’re a hypocrite, Michael.’ It stings, too. And nobody puts it on their business cards.

So why don’t I do more? I keep coming around to this question on what now seems to be a semi-regular basis. Every so often I stumble across something promising in the Economist or Nature (I’m lying, I never read Nature) that presents an argument for why the answer isn’t greed. For a while this contents me until eventually, inevitably, the words begin to ring hollow–or I stumble across a Peter Singer article–and then I’m back to square one.

So why don’t I do more? Is it because I don’t like the poor/environmentalists/animals? They’re annoying at times to be sure, and I don’t really like their smell, but no, I don’t think that’s the answer. I certainly feel bad when I stop and think about their position. I wouldn’t feel bad about someone or something I didn’t like, right? And I suppose insofar as I align myself with groups or political parties, I do so with those that try to defend these sorts of people. That’s got to count for something. Right?

Maybe I don’t think they should be helped. People eat animals. That’s the way of the world. It’s naive and foolish to try to change the way things are; much better instead to simply go with the flow. And yet as I noted above I feel sympathetic to these causes and will do little things like voting for a party that says it wants to change the status quo. Why do this if I don’t think they should be helped? And if I did feel like this why would I feel guilty about not doing anything? Surely, I’d be like the conservatives I disparaged above and be content in my own self-righteousness.

Perhaps I’m greedy. I don’t want to forego something in order to help someone else. This theory sounds good and, in spite of my reluctance to want to accept it, it seems pretty plausible. The problem is it isn’t always true. I do go out of my way to help people. Not systematically, that’s true, and not on a grand scale, but I’m certainly not beyond putting myself out. And it’s not as if some of the things I’m neglecting to do are grand. I’m talking about having shorter showers or making sure the TV is powered off when I go to bed. Some of the sacrifices I could be making are ludicrously small. And I’m still not doing them.

Which brings me to the final possibility: I don’t think it will make a difference so I don’t see the point. So what if I start sending some of my wage to World Vision? Millions (billions?) will still starve. So what if I cut the length of my showers in half? There are over 120 million people in Japan alone. We’re literally talking about drops in the ocean. Without the collective efforts of huge numbers of people changes in my behaviour will do nothing to ameliorate the larger problem.

If this sounds like a variation on ‘Everyone else was doing it’ it’s because it is. Since when has the moral imperative been dependent on a larger successful outcome? We do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because it will resolve some bigger problem. Otherwise we wouldn’t say ‘kind’ when we could just say ‘efficient’. If we accept that helping those in need is right, it makes no difference to the normative question of what we should do if our efforts are likely to bear fruit or not.

All of which has got me thinking. Is it too easy to be a hypocrite? As scandal after scandal enveloped the likes of Mark Foley and Ted Haggard in 2006 I wondered if hypocrisy was the final great sin in modern society. I’m not so sure any more. Now I wonder if, at the end of the day, while we put up a veneer of outrage when someone is hypocritical we don’t want to throw the stone too hard. At least not while we’re still in the glass house.

So perhaps we need to be tougher. Perhaps we should feel uncomfortable about the way things are. Perhaps we need to make others feel uncomfortable about the way things are. Perhaps simply waiting for people to decide to do the right thing takes too long or never really works anyway. Perhaps we need to exhort ourselves and others to do better and not to put it in the too hard basket. Perhaps we need to be that guy at the party that makes others feel uncomfortable. Perhaps we need to do this not because we seek to aggrandise ourselves but because we really think this stuff is important.

Even as I’m suggesting this I’m wondering if I really do want to be that guy at the party. Nobody likes him and does he really achieve anything anyway? Perhaps there’s a middle ground? No, stop. Isn’t accepting mediocre responses the thing that got us into this in the first place? I thought we were going to be tougher about this. I don’t know what I feel any more. Dizzy, mostly.

Where has this inquiry led me? Closer to understanding my own motivations? Further away? Around in circle? The honest truth is that I still don’t have an answer. I see-saw between the various explanations wishing someone else would come along and tell me the answer. But I know no one’s coming. That’s not how these things work.

Alone, I stay awake at night. For about three minutes.

Because I think Sunkist deserves to be mercilessly mocked until it’s withdrawn from sale I’ve transcribed the skit for you to all enjoy. If it tickles your funny bony I assure you the whole album is as good. If you’re still not sure you can get a further feel for the album on their site.

And so in an attempt to further associate myself with successful people I vaguely know, enjoy!

Lee: Hi Brad.

Jordan: Hi Nicole.

Lee: What’s that you’re drinking? Looks delicious.

Jordan: I don’t know… it tastes like Fanta, but not as good.

Lee: Hmmm. Does it have a slightly bitter after-taste?

Jordan: Yeah.

Lee: I think I know what that is. I think you’re drinking Sunkist.

Jordan: Ohhh. Sunkist.

Benny: (sung) It’s orange, carbonated, it comes in a can. Sometimes it comes in a bottle. If you open the bottle you can close it again but if you open the can you’re committed to drinking 375 mLs of Sunkist.

Lee: Now are you starting to get the picture?

Jordan: Yeahhhh. Sunkist.

Lee: That’s right: delicious Sunkist.

Jordan: Well, I agree with you on the Sunkist. (Ha ha).

Lee: (Ha.)

Benny: (sung) It contains sodium emulsifiers and food acid 333. You can find it at Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and also at KFC.

Lee: Good luck finding a Taco Bell.

Jordan: Good luck finding a Sunkist.

Lee: Mmmm.

Benny: Sunkist: Not as good as Fanta but better than Mountain Dew. Sunkist!

Lee: Warning: May cause heart cancer or cancer.

There are a couple of philosophical terms here and I’ve tried to link to explanations on Wikipedia if you want further information.

Premises

1. People have different conceptions of the the good life.
2. There is no sound proof for why one particular conception of the good life is correct.
3. Liberalism is the only political philosophy that allows multiple conceptions of the good life.
4. Oppression is forcing people to do something they don’t want to do without logical justification.
5. Non-liberal political philosophies have a particular conception of the good life.
6. Non-liberal societies force some people to follow a particular conception of the good life they don’t want to follow.
7. Non-liberal societies justify their enforcement by claiming their conception of the good life is correct.

Conclusions

1. Since there is no sound proof for any particular conception of the good life there is no logical justification for enforcement.
2. But if a society doesn’t enforce a particular conception of the good life it is liberal.
3. All non-liberal societies are oppressive.

The converse of the third conclusion is also true (I think): namely, liberal societies are not oppressive. But I might be wrong there so I’ll just leave it at that.

It’s not quite a proof for why liberalism is the only logical form of society but it’ll do for now.

ABC Insiders

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/podcast/insiderspodcast.xml

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Insiders is a weekly political chat show where a panel of guests, usually journalists, talk about the preceding week’s political news. I find it a good way to keep up to speed with political events in Australia while getting some analysis at the same time. The show is broadcast on Sunday mornings on ABC Television but is, thankfully, podcast in audio form. For those of you with funky new iPods video podcasts are not a barrier to entry but for the vast majority of us I say ‘thank you, ABC’ for letting us all listen in.

Background Briefing

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/bbing.xml

Another program from the ABC, this time their radio division. Radio National’s Background Briefing is a weekly, approximately 45-minute in-depth look into a particular issue. Sometimes the issue is of particular relevance to the news stories of that week but more often than not it’s just something important you should know more about.

Backstory

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/backstory.xml

Backstory is one of the many New York Times podcasts I subscribe to and features reporters from the Times discussing the back story to a particular issue that’s in the news. It’s especially good for putting things like financial stories into context for those of us who aren’t university-educated economists. There’s supposed to be a new one every day but I find it’s more like a few a week.

Downloadable Content

http://feeds.penny-arcade.com/padlc/

The web comic Penny Arcade is a staple of my browsing and is highly recommended for fans of video games and watchers of the video games industry. Downloadable Content is usually the recorded conversation of creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins developing their latest strip. This is reason enough for me to listen to it but the fact Krahulik and Holkins are hilarious makes it a must-listen. Although their release schedule is sporadic it’s probably for the best. I can only laugh out loud so often on the train before the Hankyu Corporation bans me from travelling with them forever.

EGM Live*

http://www.1up.com/flat/Podcasts/egmpodcasts.xml

EGM styles itself as the premier video game magazine out there and who am I to argue? EGM Live* involves some of its editorial staff coming together each Monday (US time) to discuss the latest in the video game industry. There’s often an interview thrown in and a question of the week competition at the end for good measure. It’s not the best podcast from the 1UP network and now that they’ve stopped their review roundup I’d say it’s really one for the die-hards.

Front Page

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/frontpage.xml

I started listening to Front Page after searching for a good daily news podcast to listen to. Using the front page of The New York Times as its starting point this 5-minute show features a reporter essentially summarising the contents of the newspaper for that day. As you’d imagine you don’t get a lot of depth but if you want to quickly know what’s a big deal today (or yesterday since because of the North American time zone it comes out a day late for those of us in the Far East) I highly recommend it.

GFW Radio

http://www.1up.com/flat/Podcasts/cgwpodcasts.xml

Yes, you do detect a pattern. I listen to a lot of video game-related podcasts and a lot of news-related podcasts. This one is in the former category and has the editorial staff of Games For Windows: The Official Magazine coming together every Tuesday (or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday… they’re not very punctual) to talk about, well almost never video games. GFW Radio is renowned for its rambling discussions that rarely involve much more than a tangential relationship to video games. Still, somehow it works.

The Japan Considered Podcast

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JapanConsideredPodcast

Are you interested in Japanese politics but can’t read Japanese? Right, just me, then. Well for me, the Japan Considered Podcast is a godsend. For half an hour every week Dr Robert C Angel gives us the benefit of his understanding of Japan’s domestic political scene. It’s always over far too soon and the delay between when the podcast is recorded and when it goes up sometimes makes it a week late. However, neither of those factors stop it from being the best podcast about Japanese politics out there.

KCRW’s The Treatment

http://media.kcrw.com/podcast/show/tt

Movie critic Elvis Mitchell has seen every film ever made so that makes him uniquely suited to discussing films with any actor, director or writer who strolls into his studio. Mitchell records an interview every week and spends 30 minutes going into the kind of depth most interviewers can never attain. If you ever wish those 5-minute US talk show ‘chats’ were a bit longer, give it a listen.

New Yorker: Comment

http://feeds.newyorker.com/services/rssfeeds/comment_podcast.xml

A piece from the comment section of the New Yorker magazine is read to you by one of those professionally-trained voiceover people. Politically-oriented, they usually raise or discuss issues in a way you haven’t heard yet.

Newsmaker

http://feeds.feedburner.com/reuters/audio/newsmakerus/rss/mp3/

Released several times a week from the Reuters news agency, Newsmaker gives you a brief overview of a particular issue that’s in the news. Like Backstory above it normally puts the topic into a broader context. Very short, I kind of wish they went on for a bit longer.

OpCast

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/oped.xml

A weekly interview with one of the contributors to Op-Ed pages that week. Often the contribution is political but that’s not always the case and in fact sometimes the best ones are those that come right out of left field. My favourite from last year was probably the reading of a short story commissioned by the Times for Christmas.

Slate’s Spoiler Specials

http://www.slate.com/podcast/id/2144834/

Are you ever frustrated by how movie reviews always have to dance around the plot for fear of giving it away? Then the Spoiler Special is for you. Slate‘s film critic, Dana Stevens, typically leads a discussion about a recent film. It’s not the best podcast ever made but I find it enjoyable listening.

Slate Explainer Podcasts

http://www.slate.com/podcast/id/2129874/

The Slate Explainer Podcast is released every weekday that tries to answer a question related to the news of the past couple of days. The question is selected from amongst those written to the Explainer so if you’ve got a burning question don’t just listen, write in. Awesome resource for those preparing for the weekly trivia contest down at their local pub.

Slate Magazine Daily Podcast

http://www.slate.com/podcast/

My final Slate podcast and my favourite one. The Daily Podcast is usually a reading of one of the popular stories from the pages of Slate. I say usually because sometimes instead of a story, it’s Slate’s Audio Book Club and sometimes it’s Slate’s Political Gabfest. The Book Club is what it sounds like and is recommended but the Gabfest is what I really look forward to. A 30-minute roundtable discussion of the political issues that week in the US, it features great analysis from Slate’s political correspondent, John Dickerson, and insightful commentary from editors David Plotz and Emily Bazelon. Despite the heavy subject matter it’s always delivered in a light hearted tone and the camaraderie between all three is probably my favourite part.

The Gabfest and the Audio Book Club are also podcast separately if that’s all you’re looking for.

The Talk Show

http://thetalkshow.net/index.xml

I’ve blogged about The Talk Show before and most of what I complained about is still a part of it, although the last few episodes haven’t involved the same degree of navel-gazing (thank God). Oh, but what is The Talk Show? It’s two Mac nerds talking about stuff (typically, but not always, Mac-related). Does that sound like something you want to listen to? I guess that’s what makes us different. Or the same. Depending on how you answered. If you didn’t answer, congratulations, it was rhetorical and shouldn’t have really been responded to.

TalkCrunch

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Talkcrunch

Once upon a time there was a podcast and it was called TalkCrunch. And it was good. It featured TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington interviewing important figures in the tech community. And then the feed broke and in spite of the fact that keen observers pointed it out nothing was ever done to fix it and no more podcasts were ever heard again.

Please fix your feed, Michael!

This Week in Law

http://leo.am/podcasts/twil/

Despite what the name might suggest this is a twice monthly podcast involving lawyers discussing issues involving the intersection of law and technology. It sounds like it should be awesome but to be honest I find it so-so most of the time. The discussion isn’t particularly structured, the participants rarely seem prepared to go into much detail and there’s usually too many people involved when you consider they’re all hooked up by Skype (there’s a lot of ‘Oh, um, was that to me?’).

1UP Yours

http://www.1up.com/flat/Podcasts/podcasts.xml

My last podcast and usually the longest one I listen to. Every Friday an assortment of 1UP staffers come together to chat about video games. It often runs over 2 hours so I wouldn’t recommend listening to it unless you really have nothing better to do. The banter between the speakers is what keeps me listening even though I regularly want to reach out and strangle Shane Bettenhausen whenever he makes some idiotic defence of Sony.

Well that’s it for this instalment. Stay tuned for my next exciting adventure wherein I’ll look at the different socks I own and rate them based on their comfort level and aesthetic appeal.

You have missed the point.

An apology by the Federal Government is not morally required because of any personal obligation. Personal obligations do not come into this at all. An apology is required because it was the Federal Government of the Commonwealth of Australia that perpetrated these actions. That the Government was in the hands of different people is beside the point. The Federal Government is a legal entity that has existed since its inception in 1901. Actions it committed in the past are as much its responsibility as actions it commits today. Such is the nature of a government.

Is a company any less responsible for its actions merely because the CEO has changed? No. The issue of whether the company is responsible is entirely independent of any particular person. So it is with governments (and indeed any corporate entity).

So we’re sorry. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘they’. Now can we just get this over and done with so we can all move on with our lives?

I just finished watching it and the film is absolutely hilarious. It’s also absolutely not for kids. I don’t mean because it contains ‘adult themes’ but because the jokes would just fly over a kid’s head. The film has at least three fantastic parodies of classic films which no one under the age of 15 is going to appreciate but which should hopefully have anyone over 15 laughing out loud.

Seems like I’m on a bit of a roll lately when it comes to animated movies. At least it washed the taste of Transformers out of my mouth.

What is wrong with you people? I really loved The Incredibles (and The Iron Giant is on my need-to-see list) but I really think Brad Bird excels himself here. The animation is stunning, the movie is funny and it has Janeane Garofalo.

Janeane. Garofalo.

This is the first book I’ve read by Maalouf, better known in the English-speaking world as a writer of fiction. Originally from Lebanon, Maalouf emigrated to France and has lived there for over two decades. In the Name of Identity is a book he wrote in response to questions of nationality and affiliation which he has had to deal with growing up in Lebanon and then upon living in France and which he saw increasingly in the world around him. It was published in 1996 and was translated from the French in 2000. It was only really discovered by the English-speaking media after the September 11 attacks and was latched onto by some for the explanation it offered as to why barbaric acts of terrorism are perpetrated around the world.

I have to say the book immediately grabbed me. Dogs and Demons was a book I wanted every Japanese person to read but In the Name of Identity is something I want everyone to read. Maalouf has a lucidity that grips you as soon as your eyes hit the page. He speaks in a conversational tone, asking questions, offering insights and all the time methodically developing his ideas about identity, which, as the title would suggest, is the central preoccupation of the book. Maalouf raises questions about how identity is constructed, how it is viewed and its subsequent effect on people’s actions as he develops a powerful argument that massacres and bloodshed between peoples almost always arise out of a threat (or, at the very least, perceived threat) to identity.

Although written before the spate of books attacking religion and not explicity intended as such, Maalouf delivers a rebuke to the Richard Dawkins’s of the world that would have religion cast as the root of all evil. Religion certainly plays its part in some of the worst atrocities mankind has commited, this is undeniable, but in understanding why some devout believers are motivated to kill while other, equally devout, sacrifice their lives to help others Dawkins, Hitchens and others on the God-is-bad bandwagon can offer no convincing explanation. Maalouf’s identity-centric understanding on the other hand neatly reconciles the apparent incongruity.

Where In the Name of Identity falls down, though, is when it verges into the specific. Maalouf’s words sound good phrased generally, and really at about 160 pages the book is intended as no more than an introduction, but when it he attempts to offer suggestions for how they can be put into practice they only raise more questions rather than provide answers. He spends a great deal of time talking about the importance of allowing people to embrace all the components of their identities and tempers this by saying that this cultural freedom cannot be used as an excuse to impinge upon universal human rights. But as anyone who has looked at the question of human rights can tell you straightaway there is little consensus on what human rights are universal. If we assume the civil and political rights that Western countries generally strive to uphold are what Maalouf means then doesn’t this necessarily mean that at some point Western cultural norms triumph over others? Something that Maalouf seems to suggest reciprocity can help solve (without actually explaining how this would happen).

Still, I don’t want to spend too much time criticising Maalouf because regardless of these problems the book still stands as an excellent call-to-arms for all those who want to be able to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems without resorting to simple slogans, invasion and armed conflict. While in specific application, Maalouf’s theory might leave something to be desired, any limitations only serve as a motivation to continue the conversation he has begun.