Blog Yellek

I listen to podcasts a lot. In the car, on the way to and from work and even at home when I have to do something mindless like cleaning. With all the podcasts on my list though there are those that I will always listen to as soon as they come out, those that I wait for each week because I know that I will enjoy every minute. Here then are 10 of my favorite podcasts (in no particular order):

1. The Spiel. Talking about boardgames these guys just deliver every single fortnight. They are funny and informative with consistently good content. Their show is segment based with each segment focusing on specific games as well as a news and notes and a feedback segment. This is my favorite podcast and comes highly recommended. The Spiel also has some really interesting contests including some really hard puzzles to solve.
2. The Java Posse. This long running technology podcast about the Java programming language alternates between news and interviews. It keeps me up to date and entertained so I can do my job. My gut feel is that this cast isn’t as interesting and fresh as it used to be but it still makes my must listen to list.
3. The Two Chris’s. This political podcast is taken from a segment on the morning program my local ABC radio station and features Christopher Pyne and Chris Schatt who debate the issues of the day from Liberal and Labor perspecives respectively. I find this a really good way to keep up to date with the Australian political landscape both nationally and in South Australia.
4. The Dice Tower. Though a little less consistent in quality than The Spiel The Dice Tower still offers quality boardgame listening with top ten lists and contributions from a number of greater or lesser celebrities in the boardgame world. They also have some good contests. Lately they have been replaying some of their older episodes in between their fortnightly new material.
5. This Week in Tech. The one word that I would use to describe this cast is slick. Professionally produced TWiT is like a PC magazine built for radio. The content tends to be lighter as Leo Laporte and guests discuss the week’s technology news.
6. Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast. One of the two Christian podcasts on my list the Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast serializes messages from prominent Christian speaker Joyce Meyer. Produced every weekday you get to hear sections of messages that Joyce preaches at various conferences and gatherings around the world as well as a few interviews. The content is really good but I find the advertising intrusive so I generally skip it. I find that if I skip the first 30 seconds of each podcast and then skip to the end when Joyce stops speaking I get the best results.
7. Geeks and God. These guys talk on some serious technical topics aimed at helping churches and ministries with technology. The content, however, is relevant to a wider audience. Their series on Drupal was fantastic. Currently on a long break I am looking forward to when these guys return.
8. Garrets Games and Geekiness. Hosted by Doug Garrett and his wife Shelley this boardgame podcast covers games that Doug has played in various locations as well as a number of really good roundtable discussions and interviews. I like the conversational style of this cast and Doug certainly manages to get some interesting guests.
9. On Board Games. A relatively new boardgame podcast hosted by Scott Nicholson (of Boardgames With Scott fame), Donald Dennis and Eric Dewey. The podcast uses a segment based format with one segment devoted to a boardgaming topic of interest referencing various gamers and then a number of game reviews. The game reviews use a “stop light” system (red, yellow, green) which I find really useful.
10. Have Games Will Travel. A long running boardgame and role playing game podcast hosted by Paul Tevis. Paul covers some interesting topics and ventures into the role playing game world in a way that is most entertaining and informative. Paul uses his experiences in improv theatre to relate to being a GM of a role playing game and manages to discuss some really interesting psychology around social contracts in gaming as a result.

There has been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the separation of church and state, particularly in relation to the proposal by the federal government to spend AUD90M on funding chaplains in schools . This is a bold move on the government’s part because it flies in the face of so many cultural beliefs of our post modernist/humanist society. Most recently I listened to a debate between the two Chris’s via podcast from ABC local radio in Adelaide . Former Labor senator Chris Schacht , an avowed atheist, was livid that the Labor party was allowing this to be supported and was giving full reign to his outrage. Christopher Pyne , Federal Liberal member for Sturt was trying to defend the government’s position and, I thought, not doing a very good job of it. Here then are some of my thoughts on the arguments being advanced in this debate.

The Government Shouldn’t be Choosing who is and is not a Suitable Person to Be a Chaplain.

This is ludicrous. The government chooses now who is and isn’t a suitable person to be employed in a school. This is to protect the children from either incompetence or malicious intent. If a school decided to employ someone who was a paedophile, advocating violent Jihad or promoting animal sacrifices I would hope that the government would have something to say about it. These standards apply to all people employed in schools and I don’t see this program as any different. As for the suggestion that the government will be vetting people’s religious beliefs and only allowing those who agree with the government’s particular ideology, that is simply scaremongering.

Look at all the Problems the Church has had with Paedophiles, We Don’t Want People Like that Looking After our Kids.

Indeed we don’t. The fallacy here is associating the church necessarily with paedophilia. Yes there have been examples of paedophiles in the church but is the incidence really greater than that in the rest of society? Is it just that the media rightly holds the church to a higher standard that cases of paedophilia receive more prominence? Is it just that the church is such a big prominent organization that it presents an easier target? Because of that prominence it is easy to hold up the examples and characterise all churches that way but is that fair? Haven’t all churches taken steps to ensure that a higher standard of child protection is in place? I know the measures taken by my church and they have been so successful that our program is being used across the country as an example of how to do child protection. With these standards in place can people really say that to employ someone from a church is to employ a paedophile?

My real argument here is that the government has to assess school workers now and do background checks and that this process be no different with those appointed as school chaplains - there really should be no difference.

Won’t the Chaplains be Brainwashing our Kids?

I have two arguments with this. Firstly, from a Christian perspective, becoming a Christian is entirely a person’s choice. You can’t be brainwashed into it because the relationship is between God and you directly. This can happen because Jesus died on the cross so that you can be holy enough to have a direct relationship with God. No brainwashing can get around the requirement of your own choice.

Secondly, what is everyone so afraid of in Christianity? What are the churches teaching that is so objectionable? Aren’t our laws based on the ten commandments anyway? Are the virtues of grace and love so hard to swallow? Quite apart from the fact that Christianity isn’t primarily about the requirements to live a good life aren’t the churches teaching things that our society values anyway?

Wouldn’t Secular Counsellors be Better?

I believe that we are both physical and spiritual beings. Any solution that ignores the spiritual component of our makeup is going to miss dealing with an essential part of our nature. Secular counsellors are not going to deal with that part of us so that, whilst what they do can be very helpful, they are not going to address the spiritual root causes of some of the problems attacking our youth.

Conclusion

In this debate we have to be mindful that a lot of the arguments are being advanced by people who are themselves religious but in different ways. Chris Schacht is an avowed atheist which is a religion in and of itself. To put atheism on a higher level than other religion whilst espousing a post modernist relativistic philosophy is the height of hypocrisy.

Some time ago I attended a street corner meeting with my local federal member Kate Ellis and I raised with her the issue of DRM. I wanted to see if there was anything she could do on my behalf to try and avoid the train wreck I can see coming.

For those not familiar with DRM it is basically a way of preventing music from being played on different devices. For instance if I buy a song on the iTunes music store and I then want to use it on any other MP3 player than an iPod, I can’t. This means that I am locked in to buying only Apple iPod music players rather than deciding for myself what the best player is. It also means that at any time Apple can control what I can and can’t do with the music I have purchased from them.

This week I received a response via Kate Ellis from Phillip Ruddock the federal Attorney General regarding my query: (more…)

Jace Kiran is only one of a number of people blogging about BlogSpot (and other sites) being blocked by Indian ISPs It appears that this is a knee jerk reaction to the Mumbai terrorist bombings designed to show that the government is taking action.

Whilst there are certainly censorship implications on this I think that the real issue here is that governments just don’t understand technology and yet they feel that they need to control it. Whether it is Senator Ted Stephens in the US describing the internet as a collection of tubes or attempts to get my local member to recognize the evils of DRM the level of technical knowledge by politicians is laughable at best and frightening at worst. Look at all the aspects of our lives that are regulated by technology and the importance it has in our society and compare that to the level of understanding by our lawmakers. The disconnect scares me a lot.

We might think that because this is India this will never happen in one of our western democracies but if we don’t do something about the level of ignorance by our politicians similar knee jerk catastrophies or worse could easily happen here.

Update: It appears as if the banning was simply a result of a large number of Indian ISP’s getting it wrong.

Our state and federal local members, Jane Lomax-Smith and Kate Ellis respectively, held one in their series of street corner meetings on the weekend at Memorial Gardens near where I live. As usual I wandered over as I like to engage with our politicians and raise any issues that are on my mind at the time. (more…)

I was listening to the radio this morning when I heard a sound bite of my friend Andrea who is now vice president of the Family First party (press release here). Congratulations on the exposure Andrea !

This week Mike Rann announced a cabinet reshuffle which means, amongst other thinqs, that we have a new education minister. Let’s hope that the new minister does something about Shine SA and their social engineering hidden agenda.

The south Australian Government is about to introduce a pilot sex education program in 14 South Australian Schools. Parents are to be sent a letter indicating that the program will commence but offering no opportunity for parents to opt out. What parents are not told is that the program is designed with a particular world view in mind when it comes to homosexuality. It includes such things as role playing homosexual relationships. (more…)

The episode on the weekend where Israeli jeeps broke up a protest of Palestinian primary school children with stun grenades and tear gas brought tears to my eyes. What does it take for people to wake up and realise that what they are doing is outside the bounds of moral responsibility? I’m not saying that either side in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is right, there is manifestly barbarism and wrong on both sides. What I am saying is that there should be a point when people look at the means necessary to reach their ends and realise that the means they are using will make it impossible for the goals they hold dear to be achieved.

Ask the next person you talk with about the war in Iraq what would justify to them an attack on Iraq ? A nuclear bomb detonated in Sydney or Melbourne ? The threat of one ? Then ask the same question of the guy in the convenience store near me whose family is in Baghdad.

Food for thought.