Protesting the Protesters

The only thing wrong with protesting against the Government is all the sad wankers who are out there doing it too.

I admit I don’t get off my arse and take to the streets too often, but when I do I see the same bunch of fuckwits out there. The dickheads dressed in Bio-Hazard suits with Heil Howard placards continually trying to get a chant from the 60’s up and running while somersaulting for freedom. These guys make me want to join the Police force just so I can spray them all with the capsicum spray.

We haven’t had a decent protest for a while so you may be wondering what brought this on. Well I was on the way home tonight listening to Brisbane’s 4ZZZ when they intro’d a protest song with a warning that it may offend those with strong feelings about politics. Why they would pussy out and provide a warning is beyond me, but I did get a slightly warm feeling in my political lobe about what was to come. Biting political satire perhaps? Not even close, just one of the archetypal sad protest wankers who saved up enough of his dole money to buy some studio time.

The song is called ‘Howard to Go’ and it’s by a group/label called Daylan Music. It’s downloadable here, and I implore you to check it out so you can cringe as much as I did. Here are a couple of choice lyrics (I transcribed them so they might be a little off):

Public health, what really counts, Desperate need of large cash amounts,
Big tax cuts to buy our votes, Instead of spending where it’s needed most…
[Spoken] Education… Clean energy

David Hicks in Guantanamo, Pleaded guilty so he could come home,
[Spoken] Is that justice?

Wheat for kickbacks in Iraq, Downer says we’re in the dark,
[Spoken] What do you think?

[Chorus]
Howard has go to go,
Don’t want Turnbull or Costello,
Johnny has had his fun,
Now it’s time for Rudd to run

Who is this aimed at? Surely no one over the age of 14. This complete lack of intelligence, subtly and wit is the hallmark of the vocal minority at any sort of protest, and it makes me want to run away from them as fast as my tar filled lungs can carry me.

If you’ve ever seen someone like Julian Burnside or Major Michael Mori ‘protest’ you are probably aware there is way to get your point across in a calm and intelligent way without immediately disenfranchising 90% of the people that, in a broad sense, agree with you.

Can we have two rally’s next time? These sad wankers, street performers and the Socialist Alliance can go to the first one and chant and interpretive dance their little hearts out. Then anyone who feels strongly about the issue at hand and would like to be part of a visible protest action, but does not wish to overthrow of our entire system of governance and, while disagreeing with him strongly, doesn’t actually believe that John Howard is literally a member of the fascist party can go to the second one.

I’m thinking a decoy strategy will have to be employed. At 10:30 we start frying up the tofu, lighting the incense and deploying the face painters, then at 11 we lead the rabble away, Pied Piper style, with a sitar player.

The real protest will begin half an hour later.

Brainteasers for a lazy Saturday afternoon

[UPDATED: Comments have the answers now!]

Ok geniuses, it’s time for a little bit of brain teasing fun. I was browsing a cool thread over at SomethingAwful about riddles and a few of them were really cleaver. I solved exactly none of them, which nearly drove me to shameful suicide, so I’m hoping you are all equally feeble of mind so I can feel better.

I’ll post the answers in a comment a bit later on, so you can mull over them for a while. They are all solvable, and not in the stupid “a duck is hypodeterimus thus only lays eggs in the spring, idiot” type way.

-----------------------------------------------

How quickly can you find out what's unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary you'd think nothing was wrong with it at all--and, in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Why? Study it, think about it, and you may find out. But you must do it without coaching: I'm not going to assist you in any way. No doubt, if you work at it for a bit, it will dawn on you. Who knows until you try? So hop to it, try your skill and pray for luck. Par is about half an hour.

-----------------------------------------------

A man walks into a bar and after a few drinks has the following conversation with the bartender:

Man: Try to guess the ages of my three daughters.

Bartender: Well, I won't guess but if you give me clues, I'll try to figure it out.

Man: Ok, the sum of their ages is eighteen.

Bartender: That's not enough, I need more information.

Man: Well, the age of one of them is the address above the door outside.

Bartender: (After returning from looking at the door) That helps, but I still don't know all of their ages.

Man: Alright then, my youngest girl's favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry.

At this point, the bartender promptly told the man the ages of all three of his daughters. What were they?

-----------------------------------------------

You're locked in a room with a lighter and two ropes and no way to tell the time. When lit, each of the ropes burn for exactly one hour. However, the speed with which they burn is not uniformly distributed over their lengths. For example, The first half of a rope may burn up in 50 minutes, the third quarter in a minute and the last quarter in 9 minutes. There's no way to tell. How do you use the ropes and the lighter to measure exactly 45 minutes?

-----------------------------------------------

You have a set of justice-type scales (two platforms etc) and 26 rocks. One of them is heavier than the others. In three weighings, how can you determine which one is the heavy one?

-----------------------------------------------

Have fun!

Global Warming, Global Shwarming?

Global climate change is an issue that seems to divide the media, and by proxy the general population, much more than it divides the scientific community. But without popular support for action there is certain to be none. So without a consistent message, how can we make an informed decision about what to do about it?

If the claims of the climate scientists are true, then nothing less than a complete upheaval of the current fossil fuel based economy is needed. If the claims of the climate change sceptics are to be believed then this is just the inflated egos of scientists and the greed of special interest groups conspiring to attack our prosperous way of life.

So what are we to believe? I’m not a climatologist and I wager neither are you. Shouldn’t we wait for the science to be 100% certain before enacting measures that are sure to damage our economy? Haven’t we been wrong about similar issues in the past?

This video takes a fresh and pragmatic approach to the issue. Via the magic of risk management it encourages us to make a decision on the action to be taken despite the spectre of scientific uncertainty.

I must warn you, it’s about as nerdy as it gets, but I wholeheartedly encourage you to give it a chance and listen to the message. To me it offers a clear way forward.




Adding weight to the 'action' side, the UN has today released a report confirming how we are unprecedentedly destroying the planet. Go team earth rapers!

Get Haneef! - Why I don’t respect this Government.

A news story today brings up a topic that is dear to my heart. How much a bunch of mean spirited bastards this government is.

Remember that Gold Coast terrorist Dr Haneef? He helped his British cousins when they tried to blow up Glasgow airport, but the Australian Federal Police caught him, locked him up using our new anti-terrorism legislation before charging him with terrorism offences. Hurray for freedom!

The only problem with that political wet dream was that Mohammed Haneef was completely innocent. All charges were dropped. Furthermore, new information today reveals that Police Commisioner Mick Keelty knew the weakness of the case against Haneef early on.

Haneef’s lawyer Peter Russo: "We've got a situation now where a person has had his visa cancelled, lost his job, had his reputation suffered based on information that the AFP provided to the director's office… Now he's [Keelty’s] come out and said that he told them that the case was weak. It doesn't make any sense at all."

Let me remind you of the case here.

They arrested a very guilty looking Haneef at the airport. Fine so far. Then they held him for almost a fortnight without charge. When they finally charged him with something and he applied for bail, he got it! That’s right, he was charged with a terrorism offence and he successfully applied for bail. There must have been some striking evidence presented at that hearing.

But instead of letting him go free, a move that was certain to embarrass the Government, the immigration minister Kevin Andrews cancelled the poor bastard's visa. So he was free on bail, but was now illegal so they could lock him up again, and when the charges were finally dropped, Andrews deported him.

What a bunch of bastards. Can anyone actually justify the behaviour of the Australian Government in this matter? Is there anyone out there that doesn’t think Andrews acted like a mean spirited little bastard in this case?

Cases like this are exactly why I dislike the current Government so much. They stopped at nothing to get Dr Haneef, and when it became clear that they were barking up the wrong tree they locked him up, shut him up and deported him.

Why not apologise to the man? “Sorry we locked you up, but you looked guilty as sin back there. No hard feelings, here’s a slab of VB, enjoy the rest of your stay in Australia.”

I just can’t respect a Government that would behave in this manner. Justice was put aside to maintain the visible consistency of our Government. Let me reiterate that I can't respect any government that would behave in this way. Rudd says at the bottom of this report that he was pleased with the way the AFP handled the case.

Our Government's policy seems to be never admit being wrong; my question is, what else are they covering up?

Occupation - The game with the heart of gold

I made this little flash game about the Iraq Invasion back in 2004-5. I figure now that I have a blog I can share it with both of you.

When I wrote it I had no idea how closely it would follow the actual war. They both involve pointless bloodshed, are poorly thought out and never-ending. Enjoy!

Use Arrow Keys to Move. Press Mouse Button to fire
your Democracy Bullets, Hold Down to throw a
Grenade.

	This is you. A well intentioned American in an ancient land, Preaching Freedom at 800 rounds per minute
	This is a Moderate Muslim Cleric. His calming words will convert Militants back into peace loving civilians.
	This is an Iraqi. He may be a Militant, he may be a civilian. Militants spout rhetoric for a while when they are newly converted, but then they realise that their best tactic is to blend into the population.
	This is a Radical Muslim Cleric. His Hate Filled Sermons will incite the civilian population to rise up against the invaders.

Beware the witnesses to your carnage: If an Iraqi witnesses the death of a fellow civilian he will rise up against you. They are especially sensitive to the death of a holy man.

The Worm, the PM, his Treasurer and her Lover

Who is the most trusted political commentator in Australia? Laurie Oakes? Paul Bongiorno? Try again. Think longer, thinner and made of pixels. That’s right, it’s the Worm.

I suppose the actual debate had some interesting topics, but the real story concerns the Worm. Why didn’t the Libs want it, who tried to silence it and who’s opinions does it represent? Because it’s demeaning to the political process, some pissed off Press Club wankers and 93 ponces from Sydney would be my answers. So lets leave it there.

On to the debate…

As much as you may hate one or both leaders, it really is impressive to see them strut their stuff in this kind of forum. It’s a million times better than the five minute press conference speeches, or the schoolyard shouting matches of question time. Besides a biopsy, there really is no better way to see exactly what each leader is made of.

You don’t get to that level of politics without being able to hold your own in a debate, and both Howard and Rudd appear master debaters (no that’s not a typo). To me though, Rudd really took the prize. He is a walking statistics machine, pulling out stats off the top of his head with ease. His cool, calm manner and watertight knowledge put him in a level above Howard in the debating stakes. By contrast, Howard’s manner seemed a little panicky, his voice slightly higher and whinier than usual.

Being open about not serving the full term if elected really put Howard in a difficult position. He did do a good job in stressing the team aspect of his government, but Rudd seized on the retirement issue and was able to use it to good advantage. It was a good move on his part to call for another debate immediately afterwards involving both Howard and Costello. The chances of that happening are Buckley’s and none, but it continues to push the point about who exactly Liberal voters are electing.

Rudd seemed to win on the environment, education and Aboriginal reconciliation; Howard was strong on international relations, employment and the economy. Rudd’s criticism of Howards handling of the economy really did fall on deaf ears. You can fault this government on a lot of things but the economy is not one of them. I would personally argue that the balance of payment figures are not the most important measure of a modern society but that’s a rant for another day.

The wide range of topics and ample time dedicated to each exemplifies why I like these debates so much. When each leader is forced to explain their views and policy in more than a 12 second, on-message sound bite you really get to flesh out what their stances are. Like when Howard was talking about industrial relations. For the first time in my knowledge, he acknowledged that the union movement had been important in Australia’s history, before dismissing it as irrelevant of course.

Overall I reckon Rudd won the night, but, as they just mentioned on the SBS world news, the more important result was the presenting of Rudd as a Prime Minister. He seemed confident, capable and ready to lead the country. But who knows, Howard has ‘lost’ the last three pre-election debates he has participated in so they really should be taken with a grain of salt.

There’s a salt-worm joke in there somewhere but I’m out of booze so I’m leaving it at that.

How much does Australia’s Internet suck?

How much are you paying for your internet connection? Shitloads? I thought so. Well there is a report out there that just confirmed it. Australia's internet is slow and expensive compared to much of the developed world.

It’s from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (some yank Think Tank) and is appropriately title The Role of Competition in a National Broadband Policy. It’s appropriate because the lack of said competition is the reason that we score so low on the world rankings. When Telstra was the only dog in town they deliberately kept us in the dial-up dark ages.

They’re still miles behind the competition. If you are Bazza Sixpack and you call up Telstra to get yourself some broadbands these are the offers available to you.

256kbps	$30	0.2GB
256kbps	$60	12GB
1500kbps	$70	12GB
1500kbps	$100	25GB
24000kpbs	$60	0.6GB
24000kpbs	$120	25GB
24000kpbs	$150	60GB

Stats are boring I know, but the gist of it is that Telstra is screwing you blind. 256kbps should not be classified as fucking broadband (it's not in the rest of the world) and ADSL 2+ with a 600MB download limit means that at its theoretical top speed you could use up that $60 worth in three and a half minutes. Bastards. How can they legally even sell that?

It is worth noting that the only reason we have ADSL 2+ in Australia is that individual ISPs installed their own DSLAMs (magic internet boxes) in Telstra’s exchanges. Telstra didn’t start offering it until years later and presumably only did so because they were forced to to compete.

Now in Australia I’m on a pretty good deal with TPG, but compared to the rest of the developed world I’m being screwed. If we take the cost per month per Mbps ratio Australia works out at 2.4. In Japan that ratio is 0.27. In other words, for my $60 connection here in Australia I would be paying $6.50 a month in Japan.

25GB ADSL 2+ : Telstra - $120 a month, Japan Super Happy Internet Company - $6.50 a month. Yep, we’re getting the Joan Collins special.

But that’s not really the whole story, because I doubt if you would be able to get a new 24 Mbps connection in Japan. Australia’s average speed is 1.7Mbps while Japan’s is 60Mbps. That right, their average speed is 35 times what ours is. Japan and Korea are probably not fair comparison for Australia (they’re so advanced I hear their children are born with USB ports now) but even when looking at the rest of the world we are behind. Especially for a country like ours that considers itself technologically advanced.

Besides the absolute masses of illegal multimedia out there, there really is a huge swag of legal content available that is just inaccessible for slower speed/limit connections. Things like Miro, the free internet TV player (I recommend the democracy now channel), or the daily show putting it’s archives online recently. Not to mention all the video available on news sites. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that we have Aussie kids out there forced to download porno pictures instead of porno movies. Oh the shame.

Will the new Lib and Labor Internet plans fix the situation? Probably not entirely, but it should be a good start. Just keep Telstra out of it.

Off Topic - I’m trying to quit smoking

There is this unit in the apartment building across the road from me that uses a projector as a TV. From what I can see they have this thing set up in a relatively small room, but it has a huge glass frontage so I can basically see the whole screen from my balcony. They are about fifty metres away from me but I can watch the screen like it was my own television. It’s so big I can read the writing on it from where I am. I wonder how they can stand watching it from a few metres away, but I guess they must like it.

I’m trying to quit smoking.

There is this old man who is always walking up and down my street. He wears green overalls and thongs and shuffles down the long hill on his way to the hardware store past Merthyr St. I usually only get to see him on Saturdays but when I do I see him walk up and down that hill about three or four times. He usually gets tired half way up the hill and has to take a break at the bus stop, which confuses the bus drivers. I wonder if he deliberately never gets all he needs when he gets to Mitre 10 just so he can make another trip later on.

I’m trying to quit smoking.

There are two prostitutes that hang around the street corner just underneath my balcony. They stand there, one in front of the other with the one in the back hugging the one in the front. When I first moved in I naively thought they were lesbians trying to assertively show their gay status. Then I saw them split up and get into cars and I realised they were hookers. Sometimes when I drive around the corner from them into my driveway they think I am trying to solicit them and come over to the car so I have to quickly press the button for the automatic garage door so they know I live there. They look reasonably pretty from far away, but up close their faces are haggard. I wonder if they started working at the same time or just met up on the street for protection.

I’m trying to quit smoking.

There is an old lady who lives upstairs in my building who is always pottering around the complex doing odd jobs. I am reasonably friendly with her and when I stop to say hello she tells me about all the things she has done around the building that day. When I first me her she told me she was eighty-eight so she must be eighty-nine or more by now. She always complains that no one else ever sweeps up the leaves or trims the hedges. I tell her that we have a gardener that does those things every fortnight but she counters that he does a lousy job and if she didn’t clean things up no one would. I wonder if she stopped being so busy all the time she would drop dead.

I’m trying to quit smoking but I just can’t find the time.

Kevin07 - The Choice of a New Generation

One obvious thing Kevin Rudd has over John Howard is age. That whippersnapper Rudd is 18 years Howard’s junior, a mere 50 years old compared with 68.

So what does youth bring to an election campaign? Snappy slogans, that’s what.

It’s catchy and fits well onto a t-shirt. A few shots of hot Aussie women with this splashed across their boobs could very well turn the election.

So what’s old man time got to offer? I checked out Howard’s various web pages and it’s all the same dignified, conservative stuff we have come to expect. Waving Australian flags and a grimacing Prime Minister in nice suite and tasteful tie. Boring.

One thing’s for sure, if this snappy slogan in any way helps Kevin Rudd to win this election then he is a guaranteed second termer. Why guaranteed? Well the next election will be in 2011.

Think about it… that’s right…

Guaranteed!

The Howard Years

Well ring-a-ding-fucking-ding, it’s finally election time. Howard has called it and on the 24th of November the nation will decide between Howard the Great and Rudd the Impaler. But before I tackle the campaign issues, I think it’s time for a little reflection on the Howard years.

John Winston Howard has been in power for eleven and a half years. He’s been my Prime Minister since I was in year 12, before I gave a shit about politics. Love him or hate him, for many voters this election he is the only leader they have really known.

I would place myself squarely in the latter of those two groups. I hated Howard when his Government used the Tampa incident to scare Australia into thinking swarms of soulless refugees were landing on our shores. I hated him when he refused to apologise to the Stolen Generation and did bugger all to help Aboriginal Australia. I hated him when he joined up with the Yanks to invade Afghanistan, then a few years later Iraq. I hated his stance on terrorism, immigration and tertiary education. You name it, I hated it.

So you’d think that there would be no one happier than me to see John Howard kicked out of office, but you’d be wrong. You’d be wrong because if he is kicked out, it won’t be because of the reasons listed above. Australia still doesn’t give a shit about Iraq, immigrants, blacks, terrorist scare mongering. They’re just sick of Howard because he’s been there for so long.

Besides the industrial relation reforms, there is not much fundamentally different between this election and the last. The same issues are around, only this time people just seem to be sick of that short bald bloke being on the telly.

I suppose I’ll be somewhat happy to see him go, but it will be a hollow victory for me because the issues that I care about will have been inconsequential to his downfall. Some, like Aussie troops in Iraq or the Pacific Solution will probably be reversed, but by opposition default, not by mandate.

Mostly though it will be just be business as usual. People will go on caring only about their wallets, football and the size of their McMansions. We’ll all forget about Aboriginal child abuse and what wars we’re involved in. The opposition will inherit Costello and be in a shambles for a while then the whole cycle will start again.

What I really wanted was for Australia to have seen through the lies of a deceitful Government back in 2001 and kicked them out of office. Or for Australia to have made a stand and thrown Howard out in 2004 when it was clear he took our country to war on what was best case an unforgivable failure of intelligence and worst case an outright lie.

I guess you could say I’m disillusioned with politics this election. Howard will retire one of our greatest Prime Ministers and Rudd is more Liberal than half of the Coalition’s front bench.

There is one thing that would bring a smile to my face come November 24th, and that would be if Howard loses his own seat of Bennelong to Maxine McKew. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when our 68-year-old conservative Prime Minster gets the news that an ex-ABC reporting woman has just kicked him out of office.

I think I feel my passion coming back.

Election issue coming soon...

Damn that Howard. I take a break for a few days and he calls the bloody election just to spite me.

Don’t worry loyal readers. Super relevant election issue coming up.

Australia’s stance on the death penalty – Rudd shows familiar form.

I’m putting aside my prepared editorial about the growing epidemic of abortions by lesbian Sudanese gangs to tackle something even more controversial, protecting Aussie-murdering terrorists from the death penalty.

I caught this story early this morning and mulled it over as I was walking to work. Labor’s shadow minister for foreign affairs, Robert McClelland, had spoken out against the Howard Government’s support for the execution of the Bali Bombing perpetrators, calling it hypocritical in light of the pleas for clemency when Australians are on death row overseas. Here are a couple of McClelland's choice quotes that news.com.au posted last night.

“Labor believes that supporting executions - even by a nation state - gives justification to all kinds of fanatical lunatics to take the lives of others in pursuit of their own warped ideologies.”

“That is why, at the highest levels, Australia's public comments about the death penalty must be consistent with policy.”

Fantastic, I thought, only through a consistent voice of objection from countries like our own that oppose the death penalty can we hope to bring about change in our Asian neighbours. Our neighbours, incidentally, who are responsible for about 80% of the known executions carried out around the world.

Furthermore, my schizophrenic brain continued, it is noble that the Labor party would make a stand on this issue when the majority of Australians would probably support the death of Amrozi and his nutball comrades.

I even started speculating on the moral high ground defence that Rudd could employ against the inevitable accusations from Howard and crew that he was disrespecting the memories of those killed in Bali. A consistent approach is crucial to avoid hypocrisy; this will strengthen our defence of the Bali Nine, etc.

How wrong I was. When I check the news sites at work, after a solid three hours of productive value adding of course, I see Kevin Rudd distancing himself from McClelland’s comments and reaffirming that Labor does, in fact, support the death penalty in this case.

If this isn’t throwing away integrity in order to blow deadshit Australia then I don’t know what is. At least we know both sides of politics are on the same page now. The page, that is, of halfhearted, UN based, general opposition to the death penalty while reserving the right to whip up a posse every now and then to lynch an Aussie hating terrorist. Rudd puts this on the record:

“…when it comes to the question of the death penalty, no diplomatic intervention will ever be made by any government that I lead in support of any individual terrorist's life.”

Please tell me definitively what a terrorist is Mr Rudd. Bet you can’t. What about those saffron clothed troublemakers currently causing havoc in Burma? What possible recourse do you have when the Junta labels them the Big T and starts cleaning house?

You don’t have to be an unemployed philosophy graduate to realise that the same arguments against the death penalty for murders, rapists and kiddie fiddlers apply equally to nightclub bombers. Of course we would all go Judge Dredd on someone who has harmed someone we love in a terrible way, but that’s why we, as a civilised society, make rational laws on such matters when we are personally distanced and stick to them in times of distress.

Howard’s racial and situational based stance on human rights abuses around the world have weakened Australia’s capacity to fight overseas injustices, and it seems that with Rudd in charge there will be little change. The arrogant chastising of McClelland for speaking up on a human rights issue he feels strongly about seem a sad indication of the Government we are soon to have.

Garrett sells his soul.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few months you are probably aware that Gunns are planning to build a ruddy great pulp mill in the Tamar Valley in Tasmania. According to Gunns this mill will be super environmentally friendly and greatly improve the Tasmanian economy. According to the Wilderness Society it will destroy all life as we know it. The most interesting thing about it is that Peter Garrett supports it.

That’s right, Peter Garrett, committed environmental activist and Midnight Oil superstar, has announced that he supports a pulp mill being built in Tasmania with the express purpose of cutting down native forests and turning them into shiny paper. What the hell has happened to this guy? What a sell out fuck.

Looking at it objectively, of course he has to support it. He’s not an independent MP, he’s a shadow minister in the Labor party, so he has to toe the party line. The real question is why would the guy put himself in this position?

He was president of the Australia Conservation Foundation for ten years, ending his last stint in 2004. That same society has labeled the pulp mill “a tragedy for Tasmania’s forests and the marine environment of Bass Strait” .

How can someone turn their views around so quickly? Three years ago he was leading that organisation, and now his chosen position is diametrically opposed to it.

It saddens me to watch him give press conferences. He seems to squirm and wriggle and there is a distinct lack of passion in those eyes. You know that deep down he doesn’t agree with the things he is saying. We are used to the shallow-of-character scumbags of politics climbing over their own grandmothers to get ahead in the party game but it makes it so much more real to see someone you once respected do it.

This is Peter fucking Garrett for God’s sake. The man who stood up at the Olympic Games closing ceremony and embarrassed John Howard in front of the entire world with his secret ‘Sorry’ t-shirts. The ultimate anti-authoritarian warrior. Now he’s spouting phrases like this;

“Federal Labor has always supported a world class mill for Tasmania that achieves best practice environmental outcomes and reduces woodchip exports in favour of economically beneficial downstream value adding processing.”

Yes Peter, federal Labor has always supported this mill, but ten years ago you would have been chaining yourself to the bulldozers trying to stop it. Now you’re filling their tanks with petrol.

What is next for Mr Garrett? Reversing his stance on Aboriginal injustice when a Labor Government also refuse to apologise to the stolen generation? He’s already given his nod to the presence of US forces in Australia and he’s stated that he will accept the extension of uranium mining. Is he going to grow his hair back next?

As saddening as it is, I suppose it’s just the realisation of the prophecy that with age comes conservatism. But it’s not universal. There are some who retain their rebellious streak into the later years. Bob Brown, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut. It’s not an inevitable slide.

It is just such a shame though. Why didn’t he join the Greens and run for a senate position with them? Just imagine the force him and Bob would have been.

Protecting Australian Families Online or Confessions of an Internet Predator. Part 2

A filter for the Internet eh? Call me cynical, but I see this as the equivalent to trying to impose OH&S laws on a war zone. The Internet is intrinsically unorganised, unregulated, unstandardised. I just had to see how these filters would attempt to block the bad parts of the net without rendering it useless.

You can see the list of filters that the gov recommends here.

I chose Integard for testing because it seemed to have the most boxes ticked on the evaluation page.

So I installed it, tried to put myself back into my twelve year old self’s mindset, and immediately began searching for porn.

I first tried the links in my toolbar, and was embarrassed to find most of them blocked. The ‘messageboards’ I sometimes visit were mostly gone. Straighdope, SomethingAwful, 4chan. Fair enough, but surprisingly Slashdot was still accessible.

Next was Google. The blocking on this seemed to be just a simple keyword filter via Google’s SafeSearch option. This filtered the results somewhat but quite a few dodgy sites get though. Once you click on them though the Integard filter kicks in and you get blocked. Euphemisms are fine though. For example, typing ‘Anorexia’ is an obvious block, but for those in the know it is known as ‘ana’. So I could get to the pro anorexia site ‘My Friend Ana’ just fine.

OK, word filtering is easy. What about Google image search? As a test I tried ‘hot guys’ with filter on and off.

Filter on: Couple of shots of Mark Wahlberg and Orlando Bloom and a few suggestive pics from gay hookup sites but generally pretty clean.

Filter off: Same shots of the superhunks but also three cocks and a crude anime of two friends, um, wrestling. A win for the filter.

A few other searches revealed (I’d changed to non gay search terms by this stage) moderate nudity but nothing that crazy. Interestingly, when you click on a naughty pic the filter blocks the page from loading, but you can still click on the picture in the google image frame at the top and it will show you the picture in full.

Seems to be working reasonable well so far. Next up P2P.

TorrentSpy – Blocked
MiniNova – Enabled, though no porn shown
PirateBay – Enabled, though you needed to log on to see ‘adult’ content.

Incidentally, as I was trying to download Tarantino’s ‘Death Proof’ via the Pirate Bay (it allowed me to download the .torrent but Azureus appeared to be blocked from downloading it, win for the filter) a pop up window appeared with a full screen add. It was advertising some stupid mobile phone service of little importance but the costs just blew me away.

The charges for this premium service were as follows. “$4.00 sign up fee plus $4.00 per msg inc. GST, Maximum 6 messages/week ($24.00 per week).” Nothing was stopping me from entering mummies phone number in that, although you did have to enter the confirmation number sent in a text message to get signed up. Probably no worse than what is in TV Week I suppose, but it does show another type of danger for Timmy twelve year old.

Wikipedia – The most obvious search terms were blocked but you could still get around it. For example, hitting the Scarification page showed me some quite disgusting pictures. Plus an external link from the page got me to a tattoo/scarification website, with embedded youtube videos of the same that I could play. Fail.

Gmail – It let me in but did weird things to the interface. I wasn’t allowed to view the spam folder, presumably because of all the crazy crap inside but I could still search the folder for specific emails. Once the search results were returned I could view the spam but not click the dodgy links inside.

Youtube – Once again I was blocked from the obvious keywords but others were let though. Searching for ‘beheading’ led me to a few infamous insurgent beheading videos (which I didn’t watch so I can’t actually confirm they were legit). I was stopped a few times by YouTube blocking what people have tagged as mature content, but you only need to sign up to see that anyway. As long as the video is not tagged with a banned keyword then you are good to go.

Well, what now? Oh yeah, proxies. A proxy is an intermediary between you and the site you are trying to visit. Most businesses use these to monitor your Internet access at work but they are also used on the net to hide what sites users are looking at. The filter can only see you browse to the proxy site, then the proxy site serves up pages to you that look like they came from it, but they actually wrap the banned sites you are trying to look at.

They can be quite sophisticated by doing things like masking the target page title and content tags (which search engines like Google uses to categorise webpages). The end result is a seemingly benign webpage sailing pass the filter that actually contains midget porn. I just did a simple test but in the end I was able to access 4chan with the filter on, and if you can access 4chan through an Internet filter it is not an Internet filter.

If after an hour I found out about using proxies (via a ‘How do I get around an Internet Filter’ Google search) then you can bet your penis enlarging spam that every 12 year old kid in the country will find out about it sooner or later.

So while chucking one of these filters on your family PC is probably a good idea, it is not a substitute for supervising your kiddies.

As a final note to the information freedom advocates out there, I understand the hesitation for any sort of Internet restriction, but I have also been on the net for quite a while and I have seen shit that would upset the stomach of a wartime morgue technician. Weird stuff you have never even thought of not only exists but has a strong user base full of punters constantly pushing the boundaries. Adults can, and do (oh God they do) what they like, but I think the kiddies need a little bit of protection from the horror that can be the Interweb.

These filters aint it though.

Protecting Australian Families Online or Confessions of an Internet Predator. Part 1

The Government has launched a new initiative promoting online safety for children and families.

NetAlert - Protecting Australian Families Online.

Safety on the Internet has now become an issue for our progressive Government and it’s net-savvy leader. Should have seen it coming really. The issue has all the elements that Howard salivates over. It provokes fear in middle Australia, involves an ambiguous threat and is mainly committed by foreigners.

Apparently the pamphlets have arrived in letterboxes around the country. I did not receive one personally, but they are available for download here.

Now while I usually present an air of false confidence when discussing topics wide and varied, the Internet is one where I can truly say I am an authority. I’ve been lurking unsupervised on the net for 14 years or so now. Ever since my friends and I would sneak into the University computer labs and post graphic genital piercing pics into wholesome chatroom discussions about horses. When reviewing material for this post I couldn’t help wondering if I am the kind of person the Government is trying to protect our children from.

So while I was initially very sceptical about NetAlert I can honestly say that I think it is a great initiative. The guide here is a well-written introduction for parents about what exactly lies out there in the big bad interweb. The pamphlet stresses the importance of education and supervision for children and encourages parents to educate themselves about the tools their children are using. I have often thought about how dangerous the web can be for the ignorant user and this is an important first step.

I also applaud them for including mobiles in the discussion. It has been a pet hate of mine how unregulated and exploitative the mobile phone industry has been in this country. From the late night sexy chat adverts on TV to the crazy frog ringtone offers during Saturday morning Video Hits. While not taking the regulatory steps I have been whinging about for years, the Government has at least started talking about the dangers of giving a 12 year old a mobile phone.

The website also stresses the importance of Internet filters, but it does it in a sensible way, in that it is not touted as a silver bullet of Internet safety. I tried out one of these filters, but I’ve decided to separate the review of it into it’s own post, to avoid lumping my criticism of it with the NetAlert program itself. As long as supervision is intrinsically linked to the use of filters I have no problem with them being promoted in the way they are.

But what good is a blog post if you have nothing to complain about? So lets get on to part two where I try to get around the Internet filter.

‘Sudes’ are the new ‘Lebs’

Immigration minister Kevin Andrews has apparently decided to cut the number of African refugees being allowed into Australia because of their failure to adequately integrate into Australian society. The main story is here, although here a spokeswoman for Andrews cites the sources that lead to the decision;

"It's more anecdotal (evidence)," she said, citing media reports of some serious crimes involving Sudanese.

News.com.au, being the trash heap of a website that it is, then goes on to mention the tragic case of Leip Gony, the Sudanese kid bashed to death the other day. Are they indicating that the Sudanese can’t take a head kicking like your average Australian? A crude form of phrenology perhaps?

Well if Andrews wants to use ‘they say’ as a basis for policy then I’m fighting back with my own anecdote, one that proves the Africans are integrating just fine.

I was at a party the other day sinking piss with a bunch of average Aussies when the conversation turned towards the problems of today, and specifically antisocial behaviour. It was then that I heard the statement "It’s those bloody African gangs."

It almost brought a tear to my eye. I felt like running up to the nearest African refugee, hugging him and saying "you’re arrived". Three or four years ago it would have been "those bloody Lebanese gangs". Africans have been promoted. How can Kevin Andrews say Africans are not integrating when they are already up to the ‘bloody gangs’ stage?

Of course this also means the Lebanese have been promoted to Cambodians, the Cambodians to Vietnamese and the Vietnamese to Greek/Italian.

This is perfectly summed up by Phong Nguyen, chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council in this article.

"When my community came here, everybody say shock and horror, no way the Vietnamese will settle well in this country and we did have plenty of problems not dissimilar to the Africans today," he said, "Yet now you look 30 years later, the Vietnamese are now proud citizens of this country."

I wish policy makers would have more faith in this great country of ours. Australia is an awesome place and surely anyone who comes here as a refugee will slowly warm to our way of life and, with help, seek to understand and integrate with our unique, migrant rich culture.

And if they don’t, then who cares? They’re Australians now and they can do what the fuck they want.

Australia supporting the Yanks in an Iranian offensive?

From Tom: “Hey Sam, what's your thoughts on Seymour Hersh's 'revelation' that Iran is next for American bombs, and that Australia has made an 'expression of interest'. Surprised?”

Story is Here.

Just quickly: It's no secret that the hawks in DC have been itching to knock down Iran a few notches. I don't see the US starting another war, but it seems quite likely they will (surgically [vomit]) bomb Iran quite soon.

Starting wars is a big thing but the yanks have always been super keen do a bit of hit and run bombing here and there. Like Hersh says, if they can rev up the rhetoric machine and convince the populace there is a reason for a strike it'll be raining bombs in no time.

"We're threatening Iran, we've been doing it constantly, but instead of saying to the American people and instead of saying internally, 'It's going to be about nuclear weapons', it's now going about getting the guys that are killing our boys,"

It’s interesting when he explains how they will sell it in terms of Iraq payback rather than the WMD line of the last major offensive. Once bitten eh? Seems quite obvious that Iran is supporting certain 'insurgent' forces in Iraq, but that's what governments do isn't it? Proxy wars are a hell of a lot cheaper than real ones.

Why the fuck Australia would be making comment, even in private, is beyond me. There would be no question of Australia sending planes or other support, at least publicly. I would think that would be an incredibly unpopular move over here.

Paraphrasing Jesus since 345AD.

News recently that the Anglican Church has cleared the way for women to become Bishops. Reminds me of a quote from the late Bill Hicks about female priests being allowed in the US. “Great, great. That makes priests of BOTH sexes that I won't listen to.”

But that’s just my godless cynicism talking. The real question should be what kind of institution in 2007 specifically prevents women from acting in certain positions? The answer would be none except our various religious bureaucracies of course, because if anyone else tried it nowadays they would be taken to court by the equal opportunity commission.

The zeitgeist of our semi-enlightened times considers men and women equal in pretty much everything except the obvious physical differences (can I beat most of you ladies in an arm wrestle, and you can grow a little human in your guts: Q.E.D). So why would the Anglican Church, or any religions body for that matter, still be discriminating against women?

Answer 1: They are an archaic sexist cult and their outdated beliefs should be recognised as the irrelevant superstitious gibberish that they are and ignored.

Answer 2: Their holy teachings specify that the position of priest or bishop should only be held by men and we should respect those beliefs.

I personally go for answer one, but, at the risk of being accused of straw man debating, I’m going to focus on option two, if only to bring up one of my favourite points that Richard Dawkins espouses. If you find it unfair of me to use the ‘women as bishops’ issue as the launching pad for this rant then feel free to substitute homosexual priests, homosexual marriage, capital punishment, working on the Sabbath etc.

The basic point is that if the bible contains the teachings of Christ and the word of God then He (they? that transubstantiation stuff does my head in) surely knows best and we should follow His teachings to the letter of the book. So if the bible forbids women priests or flared trousers then God fearing Christians should adhere to that and try to prevent it.

But things don’t seem to be that clear-cut in the bible. If they were there would be little reason for things like Papal Councils, Archbishops or theologians. Those people and institutions exist to provide judgement on religious matters and interpretation of religious document, and that’s the kicker, because as soon as you introduce human judgement and interpretation the whole system falls down.

There can be no bootstrapping here. If the bible by itself cannot provide unambiguous guidance, then personal judgement is required and the basis for that judgement must be external to the bible; ergo, mankind does not require God for moral guidance.

In fact the suggestion that mankind should be allowed to taint the teachings of God with our own judgement is in itself blasphemous. If we can use our free will to interpret the word of God into a system of morality then I would argue that we could use that same interpreting mind to do the same without God.

If you think like this the way I do then you sort of have to respect the fundamentalist religiods more than the so-called moderates. At least their beliefs are less tainted by arbitrary human judgement. They are also batshit crazy when compared with what most of us would consider normal behaviour so it’s a win-win for Señor Atheist here.

It’s all or nothing. If the teachings of the Church of your choice change with the times then they have been altered by human judgement and bias. Why not skip the fables and damnation and just develop a system of living together that reflects the times and aims to provide compassion, opportunity and respect to all, sans the magic?

Probably going to burn for that one.