Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Obama backpedalling but it won't be enough

I stand by my previous post.

Obama is trying (see this Washington Post article), but Reverend Wright's comments cannot successfully be repudiated by Obama. He is simply too linked in to the man who officiated at his wedding and baptised his children. How can Obama survive the inevitable Republican attack?

If Wright is "presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for", as Obama said yesterday, then how did Obama not know this given that he has known Wright for 20 years and has attended his church since 1992!

If true, what does it say about Obama's judgment?
If untrue, what does it say about his integrity?

See extracts below:

Sen. Barack Obama today strongly criticized the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, saying that Wright's comments about the United States in recent days have been "destructive" and "outrageous."

...

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.

His strong words come just six weeks after Obama delivered a sweeping speech on race in which he sharply condemned Wright's remarks but did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member. After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago made three public appearances in four days to defend himself.

On Monday, Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

And perhaps even worse for Obama, Wright suggested that the church congregant secretly concurs.

"If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Obama stated flatly that he doesn't share the views of the man who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and been his pastor for 20 years. The title of Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," came from a Wright sermon.

"What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for," Obama said. "And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people."

...

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. ... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."

While Obama said he remains a member of the church "obviously this has put a strain on that relationship.

"There wasn't anything constructive out of yesterday," said Obama. "All it was was a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth."

The Secret: legal battle

Fascinating legal battles emerging over The Secret, as detailed in the New York Times.

The Secret is a self-help book/video/money-marking venture based on the belief that adherents to its philosophy will receive “unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity”. And who wouldn't want unlimited love? And some unlimited health, happiness and prosperity sounds ok too I guess. Try not to laugh - The Secret has apparently pulled in revenue of $300million.

Apparently "the universe will make your wishes come true if only you really, truly believe in them". Obviously to date I haven't wished hard enough for a new Maserati, Red Hill acreage and for Rachel Bilson to fall deeply in love with me. I'm gonna start wishing harder -starting now.

Anyway, onto the legal stuff. It sounds messy - involving Hungarian companies, jurisdictional battles between Courts in the US and in Australia, conflicting views as to authorship and lots more fun stuff.

Watch this space - I'll try and follow this case through.

Extracts from the New York Times follow:

On Monday the movie’s director, Drew Heriot, filed a copyright suit in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, against Ms. Byrne and her production company. The suit claims that Mr. Heriot is the co-author of the screenplay and the book and is therefore entitled to up to half of what his lawyers estimate as $300 million in “Secret” revenue.

The suit alleges that Mr. Heriot worked on the screenplay, conducted most of the interviews for the film and supervised its editing and postproduction. The book, much of it a transcription of the movie, is based on documents Mr. Heriot created, the suit alleges.

Because he was an independent contractor and not an employee of Ms. Byrne’s production company, Mr. Heriot retained rights to his creations, and Ms. Byrne promised him a percentage of profits, the suit argues.

The legal wrangling over the project began in July 2007, when TS Production applied for the United States copyright to the “Secret” movie and spinoffs. The next month Mr. Heriot applied for copyright to “The Secret,” claiming authorship of the movie and the screenplay.

Soon after that, TS Production filed suit in the Australian courts. Both Mr. Heriot and Ms. Byrne are Australian, and they began working on projects together around 2000. That’s when Ms. Byrne, then a television producer, contracted with Mr. Heriot’s production company for his services as an editor on “Australia Behaving Badly,” a “Candid Camera”-style series.

In the Australian courts, TS Production has asked to be declared owner of all copyrights to the book and movie “The Secret.”

Mr. Heriot, the court papers argue, “directed the film under the terms of his employment under a contract of service” with Ms. Byrne’s company and is not entitled to any copyrights.

After filing suit in the United States, Mr. Heriot’s lawyers filed a motion in the Federal Court of Australia, Victoria District Registry, notifying it that he had started litigation in the United States, the country where the copyright registrations had been filed, and asking it to postpone or dismiss its version of the case on jurisdictional grounds.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I'm calling it: Clinton over Obama

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama's long-time minister, has spoken at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. His comments included:

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.

...

MODERATOR: What is your motivation for characterizing Senator Obama's response to you as, quote, "what a politician had to say"? What do you mean by that?

REVEREND WRIGHT: What I mean is what several of my white friends and several of my white, Jewish friends have written me and said to me. They've said, "You're a Christian. You understand forgiveness. We both know that, if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected."

Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls, Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they're pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.

...

MODERATOR: In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Have you read Horowitz's book, "Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola," whoever wrote that question? Have you read "Medical Apartheid"? You've read it?

(UNKNOWN): Do you honestly believe that (OFF-MIKE)

REVEREND WRIGHT: Oh, are you -- is that one of the reporters?

MODERATOR: No questions...

(CROSSTALK)

REVEREND WRIGHT: No questions from the floor. I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven't read things, then you can't -- based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.

...

See a transcript of his speech here. I'm not sure I even excerpted the good bits - for example the questionable comments re Israel. There's strong stuff in there.

As I see it, this will be the death of Obama's candidacy. Primarily because it makes him unelectable at the general election. A strongly-worded denunciation of Wright by Obama is not credible (and in fact, Obama gained substantial praise for the way he dealt with the last eruption) and at some stage the chickens will come home to roost.

These remarks, combined with what has been said before and what appears likely to come, are just too perfectly suited to attack ads. Obama's credibility with middle America (as opposed to the people Australia calls 'chardonnay socialists') cannot survive being linked to this stuff.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

furniture

obsessing about furniture for chambers...

current obsessions:
walter knoll drift


emeco hudson armchair

Sunday, April 20, 2008

FriendFeed

Have signed up for friendfeed, after seeing it discussed on BB's blog.

A good step along the way to the multiplicity of communications, but not the final answer. For where things are right now (simultaneously projecting myself via email, blog, facebook updates, twitter, digg, shared items on google reader, putting photos up at flickr et al) it is doing a good (but not perfect) job of aggregating them.

Of course, one might think that life would be simpler if one reduced the number of communications media in one's life, thereby eliminating the need to aggregate.
But I have no intention of doing that - instead, I intend to continue to sign up to everything going in the firm belief that everyone is vitally interested in what's going in my life at all times.

One interesting (but unsurprising) quirk / bug is that FriendFeed refused to recognise my Google Reader shared items page until I manually deleted the '.au' from its address.... a bug that simply wouldn't be picked up by US testing...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

More good Gatto / Opes Prime stuff

From The Age today:

Directors of Opes Prime-linked companies Mr Moghe, Gordon Browne and Raj Maiden had agreed to meet today, Mr Gatto said. The men deny they have, or control, any of the missing funds. Mr Gatto was angry at suggestions Mr Moghe was rushing back to Singapore to fly his wife and children out for their own protection.

"That's not our style," Mr Gatto said. "I haven't spoken to him or anything at this point.

"I've got a reputation to uphold and one of my key points is I don't interfere with women and children. I'm firm on that.

"We've got no intention of doing anything illegal or untoward to anyone."

Mr Gatto said he had planned to make people worried. "We don't mind them being a little bit nervous because they'll be honest and truthful with us, and hopefully we will get a result."

and
"Don't worry about how we are going to get the money. We aren't here for the noodles."

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

My Blueberry Nights


When (and if) this ever makes it to Australia, I am so looking forward to My Blueberry Nights - the first Wong Kar-Wei english-language feature starring Miss Natalie Portman.

See this review by AO Scott for the NY Times. Scott gets the appeal of Wong Kar-Wei. The luxurious, beautiful visuals and the creation of a mood - both of which completely overwhelm his plots (to the extent a plot exists at all - see ChungKing Express, Fallen Angels and 2046 for a few examples). The languid pacing. The total absence of reality.

Awesome new BB post

Great post at Ben Barren's blog yesterday - 24 hours in the life of - for wannabe 2.0 entrepreneurs it will read somehow simultaneously as both a cautionary tale and an inspirational one.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

A Gatto update

Following on from my post earlier in the day, this afternoon on the online edition of The Age:

Gatto said the company provided a simple service where ''we go and see the client and we say... 'we really think that you should pay, and it's all done amicably and 9 times out of 10 its settled and the client's happy and we're happy and of course the bloke who owes the money is happy to have that weight of his chest'.''
And who wouldn't want that weight off his chest.

Mediations, Arbitrations and Opes Prime

Possibly one of my favourite stories of all times in today's The Age - and presumably also in the Herald Sun but I haven't checked.

The quote to end all quotes:

Mr Gatto's private company, Arbitrations & Mediations - which he says makes "problems disappear" - has in the past been engaged to deal with feuds on Melbourne construction sites.

Yesterday, Mr Gatto told The Age: "These Opes Prime clients can take their chances and lose all their money to lawyers and to the receivers, or they can take their chances with me to extract a return on their behalf.

"The proof is in the pudding with me. I solve problems … It's my way or the highway".

and later in the article:

Barrister Nicola Gobbo confirmed that Mr Gatto - the man who shot dead underworld hitman Andrew "Benji" Veniamin in 2004 and was later acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defence - would be travelling overseas to try to track down money and shares related to Opes Prime.

Asked about Mr Gatto's clients, she said: "Some would be described as business people, if you very loosely used the term 'business people'.

Facebook / ConnectU

According to the New York Times (and commented on by Techcrunch) Facebook is about to settle the ConnectU litigation. The litigation arises out of allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole ConnectU's ideas (source code, business plan and design) back in 2003 - Zuckerberg was at college with the founders of ConnectU and worked for it before starting Facebook.

Regardless of the truth of the allegations, it is a distraction that Facebook doesn't need. If the action can be settled on reasonable terms then I would think that Facebook should do all it can to settle.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Kid Stays in the Picture - the audiobook


With many many thanks to Lucas, I've been listening to the audiobook of The Kid Stays in the Picture. The Robert Evans book / movie / mini-industry is now an audiobook. And what an audiobook! Narrated by the great man himself with more verve, panache and brio than I knew was possible, the audiobook simultaneously demonstrates why Evans never really made it as an actor and why he is a truly compelling 20th century figure.

I just wish I'd been able to locate a snippet to link to - but I can't :( - so all I can say is that it would make a fantastic early christmas present, so start pleading with your mamma now. you MUST hear it.

A rare (unique?) example where I think the audiobook is actually the best vehicle for the content. Better even than the film.