Went to the movies and watched the new release. Haven't one that in a while. God these tickets are expensive these days. (Thanks real estate bubble, you're killing one of my few joys).
Anyway... I've seen some complain-y reviews of the film but it's not that bad. cCan't say it's good that grown ups are so excited over comic book content, but it is the way of the post-modern, the way of the 21st century. I shouldn't get embarrassed, but by the fifth smashed robot, I started to feel this bleakness inside.
It's a fun movie if you want to channel your inner seven year old.
It's not great if you're expecting Joss Whedon to channel... oh I don't know Stanley Kubrick. No, it's not that kind of film. But you know that going in when you buy the tickets. The friggin' expensive tickets!
ANZAC Day
I used to stay home on ANZAC Day. It's too much. It's one of the integral pillars to the identity politics of this nation but you know what I think about identity politics. It's a public holiday built on a grievance of sorts. It's not as edifying as politicians make it out to be - and I mean that with the utmost respect to the fallen. It's simply not going to help this country unless we can go from 'Lest We Forget' to something bit more positive. I know it doesn't make me popular writing that, but as the years wear on, and on the very Centenary of the sad landing, it seems ever more obvious that the flag waving is going to hurt this society more than it helps.
Bali Nine Leader Executions
One of the weirder things about human civilisations is that we commit to the law being absolute. Without it, we reason, civilisation itself won't work. Then we complain when it functions in a manner that hurts our feelings. The Indonesians are about to execute Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The story can be simplified down to they did the crime, now they're losing their lives because it's the law in Indonesia. All the pleading we have done as a nation to spare their lives have been laughed off as signs of our moral weakness in not being able to take the justness of law in Indonesia.
And so we can expect the final orders to be issued soon. I'm extremely uncomfortable about capital punishment but it is a long ad hard battle to turn such laws over. It will best in Indonesia, and it was so, once upon a time in Australia. Nevertheless, the words that remain with me are those of Socrates who took the hemlock saying that even bad laws are laws and must be obeyed. My heart goes out to the family and friends of the Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. It is right down to the end awful, awful business.
The TPP Really Sucks
More on the TPP. It's worth reading at least the first half of that one.
The conflict between intellectual property protection and cheap medicine has lasted for decades. Should the Trans-Pacific Partnership be passed, it's an issue that will suddenly come into sharp focus for Australians.
The TPP is a trade treaty involving 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia and the United States.
What the pharmaceutical industry is proposing as part of the TPP is 12 years of monopoly after the release of a new treatment. During this time, companies will be able to charge whatever the market will bear for the new drug.
That period is seven years longer than the current data protection period in Australia, after which competitors can develop and sell cheap generic alternatives. And for someone suffering a serious illness who needs affordable medicine, that seven years literally could be a life-and-death difference.
Yes, many life-saving drugs are subsidised by the Australian government's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the PBS could choose to subsidise the costs of these expensive new drugs. Of course, that merely shifts the problem around. Each year of extra monopoly protection could cost the PBS hundreds of millions of dollars, in a very tough budgetary environment.Not only it bad for consumers, it's even bad for the government - and by extension bad for the rest of the citizens. It's a terrible treaty and we simply shouldn't be signing up for any of it.
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