The Australian Federal Police's (AFP) "High Tech Crime" division has only just now realised the risks of identity theft social networking sites pose. The slow speed with which they have realised these risks is a scary thought on it's own. These are the members of the AFP who are meant to understand computers, the internet and how crimes are committed with them. And yet it has taken how many years since the inception of Social networking for these apparent masters of technology to realise what to me has always been a rather obvious risk.

High Tech Crime Operation acting national manager Karl Kent said

"Children are providing personal details on these sites such as their full name, date of birth, their place of residence and even the school they attend. Online fraudsters can use this information to open credit card accounts and commit financial crimes in the child's name."

His warning of course doesn't apply only to children, adults are at just as much risk if these same details are displayed. Federal Police advised users to change the default privacy settings on their social network of choice to more secure settings. But lets think about this for a moment, what is the most popular social networking site on the internet? Answer: Facebook with it's 400+ Million users world wide. But as I have discussed previously in this blog Facebook MANDATE without option or choice by the user that your name, date of birth, likes/dislikes (in the form of fan pages), "Home Town", country of residence and profile picture are all a matter of public domain.

That is to say Facebook allows google and other search engines to collect that data from EVERY ONES profile without exception. Once google has hold of it that information is then accessible by ANYONE on the internet, even those who don't hold a Facebook account let alone be on your friends list. Doubt me? Read Facebooks privacy policy yourself, it's all in there. So 400+ MILLION people across the world have their details; the very same details an identity thieves need; publicly accessible anywhere on the internet, by anyone without any option to stop that from occurring.

If that wasn't scary enough, thanks to the demanding language Facebook use in their sign up form and the general nature of how social networking works, most Facebook users have input their real, true details instead of fudging them a little. In fact to fudge your details on Facebook is actually a major breech of the Facebook terms of service and will result in immediate termination of your account. Weird huh? It's almost like Facebook WANT you to have your identity stolen.

Links;

iTWire Article

Queensland police a completely useless, getting involved in civil matters, for which they hold no powers, while real crimes are being committed. A level of sexism exists in that they will respond to a female, but if a male is in the same situation they won't respond at all.

My personal example of this is as follows; A few years back my eldest son was living with me, happily when his mother snatched him from my house when I made the mistake in hindsight of leaving her alone with him. I immediately called emergency 000 but was told it isn't an emergency and that I should call my local police department. So I did just that and was told it's a civil matter, and as such they can't do anything. That they wouldn't be sending out a car, that they wouldn't be doing anything about it. They further advised me that I could not lawfully take one step in her yard. I of course ended up taking the matter to court but that's a whole different story all together.

Flash forward to tonight when Sarah and I ended (over what isn't important) and of course I wanted to take Dee with me. What happened in between is of no importance to the story other then to say no criminal action took place. I sat in the bedroom with dee trying to put him to sleep, quietly. At 8pm police arrived at my door to attempt to deal with the civil dispute. I very quickly put the two responding officers in their place and they left as they had no business getting involved. Sarah and I were still in the same house, dee was not in harms way nor neglected in any way.

Clearly this shows that if you're a man and your ex takes your child, the police don't care, but if your a woman and it happens the police respond and make up a bunch of lies. Thankfully I understand the law very well and called them on their lies, put them in their place and they left as they should have. But how many fathers don't know the law, how many fathers get stitched up by the police? That is an utter disgrace!

Now ask yourself this, while they were here arguing with me over the fact they had no right to be here, how many ACTUAL criminal offices took place? Ask yourself, while they were hassling me with my civil matter, how many children in ACTUAL danger went unheard? How many people were assaulted in that space of time on a FRIDAY NIGHT? Heck in the space of that time I heard no less then FIVE (5) people SPEED passed my house.

The Queensland police need to get their freak'in act together. The law clearly states they have no power or right to intervene in a civil dispute. None! They only have the right to become involved when someone commits a criminal act, or threatens to do so; which of course includes an act of violence. Where so such criminal offenses have taken place, or are likely to take place they have NO POWER nor the right under the law to become involved in the situation. They need to go out their and fight crime and stay out of civil matters. Civil courts are for civil matters, not police.

War, human suffering, industralised land clearing, climate change, over population...the list goes on and on and on and one thing unites them all. They're caused by money. I'm sure when money was introduced it seemed like a good idea, a standardised unit of value to create a "universal" valuing system; and in that purist form it's a brilliant idea. The problem is it's a system which doesn't account for emotions like greed.

Humans have a huge tendency toward greed and it never ceases to amaze me how even a relatively small sum of money can absolutely change an otherwise kind, generous person into an arrogant, selfish monster. Oh yes, the statement money is the root of evil is entirely true. Think about it.

Ever war in recent history was fought over money, heck some of those wars were only fought so the arms dealers could stay in business. Think about how many 100s of MILLIONS of lives have been lost due to wars fought over money. Not freedom or defending territory or anything like it's made out to be, but pure cold hard cash. This Iraq war being fought at the moment for example, all over oil and keeping a few big name arms dealers in business. It makes me sick to think all those soldiers are dying or coming up with mental disorders, all their families worrying and suffering, so a few rich blokes can make some more money. That is disgraceful and disrespectful to the soldiers and their families.

And climate change, geez. Industralisation occurred to produce products in greater numbers so the business owners could make more money. From Industralisation green house gases were released setting in effect a chain reaction for which we are seeing the beginnings of the results now. Massive land clearing, logging, mining and so forth, all spurred on by money, all adding to the climate change effect. And when presented with the climate change data over the passed 40 years the excuse to not do anything about it? "It will to strongly negatively impact on our economy" or in other words, money.

Without money there would be no poor, homeless or starving people in the world. Not less! NONE! Think about it. If you got rid of money over night what that would mean for these people. Even over population has it's roots in money, for with money as an incentive larger and larger farms have been developed making an abundance of readily available food. As food becomes easier to obtain population booms. It's basic biology 101. Yep, there really aren't many problems humanity is having today that don't have their roots in money.

Now defenders of money might say "it's not a perfect system, but it's all we have". That is a complete cop out. Before money it was barter, if the advocates of the barter system had copped out like that money would never have been invented. What we need is to develop further on the system of money, to advance forward in our system of trade. I mean money, as a system was created thousands of years ago, isn't it about time we brought our trade system into 2010?

Yes you read the title right, being a vegetarian is bad for the environment. I've long stated this fact to any vegetarian and vegan continuing their doctrine that it's better for the environment. Well now I have scientific back-up in this department by way of a study commissioned by environmental group WWF; but more on that later.

The vegetarian/vegan argument goes something like this. 1 cow used to produce meat will produce [x] amount of methane and consume [y] amount of food and take up [z] amount of space. On contrast vegetarians argue that a wheat plant takes up [a] amount of space and doesn't produce methane and doesn't eat food.

This on the surface when said quickly and not thought about to much might sound like a reasonable statement. But just think about it for a moment, actually read over it again and think about it. It's actually a rather illogical statement, in that you're comparing a whole cow which will feed 20+ people to a single wheat plant which will feed, wait for it... NOT EVEN ONE (1) person. Add to that the pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals required to grow any large sized crop and it quickly becomes clear that, being a vegetarian is more harmful then good.

While you're at it take this on board as well, it takes 14.5 KILOGRAMS of broccoli to equal the same amount of iron content as 500g of steak. Not only is it near impossible to eat that amount, but can you consider the amount of land it requires to grow 14.5 KILOGRAMS of broccoli? Let alone enough for everyone in a country to eat that amount of broccoli every day! But there is more and this is where the study kicks in.

UK's Cranfield University was commissioned by the WWF to conduct an independent study on the effects of a vegetarian or vegan diet on the environment. The study found that meat substitutes such as soya, chickpeas and lentils where MORE harmful to the environment because they are imported into the UK from other countries. This is also true for countries like the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The study found that the carbon footprint left by importing these products was far greater than the environmental harm caused by livestock.

The study, agreeing with my argument also concluding;

"A switch from beef and milk to highly refined livestock product analogues such as tofu could actually increase the quantity of arable land needed to supply the UK."

and went on to say that meat substitutes are often highly processed foods, requiring vast amounts of energy to produce. Energy which runs on coal power. So here you have a raw product which was imported from overseas, was then processed using vast amounts of energy, and it's apparently meant to be more environmentally friendly then a cow in a field? A cow which I might remind you is an animal which is meant to exist. When you really think about it, it's laughable that anyone ever really thought being a vegetarian or vegan is better for the environment.

So now with the claim about the diet being beneficial to the environment gone, and piles of other evidence that the diet is also really bad for your body; one can only wonder why anyone is continuing this diet, let alone promoting it. I've included some interesting links at the bottom of this post which may help you to see clearly when next a vegetarian friend tries to guilt you into their way of life.

Links;

Telegraph Article on WWF study
The Independant Article on Vegetarianism making you ill
29 Common Reasons Why Your Vegetarian Diet Isn't Working
Beyond Veg
Pavlina: Why Vegetarians are unhealthy
Disadvantages of going Veg

Is it just me or has anyone else in the area I live in noticed the sudden over whelming smell of curry? Seriously it's everywhere, I went for a run just before and the air was sickenly thick with the smell of curry. What happened to the smell of backyard barbecues? Of burnt meat, open flame and seafood? That's my Australia, not a land of curry.

Have the amount of immigrant Indians really reached such a number already that the place stinks like India does? This is Australia, we have our own culture here, I don't agree with the number of Indian immigrants coming into the country but if they're going to come in they could at least have enough respect to take on our culture. If they wanted to live in a country with the culture they grew up with, smelling the way the country they grew up in did and everything like their native land, DON'T IMMIGRANT!

If you're going to immigrate to another country then seriously have some god damn respect. You don't need to try and make my country the same as your country. No only is that disrespectful, but it's illogical. You move to a new country because you like the culture, lifestyle, etc of the new country and thus you assimilate into the new country. If you're not willing to assimilate into Australia then LEAVE and take your stinky curries with you.

Ok so it's 3:16am and this aboriginal show called "message stick" is on the ABC. This Aboriginal woman was just on and tried to claim that aboriginals are *cough* invisible to Australia. Excuse me? How do they figure that one? Invisible people don't get their TV shows aired on the government run ABC. They don't have special warns put at the front of TV shows which have people who have died in them because that effects their culture. Invisible people don't have land rights like in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Invisible people aren't counted as citizens and aren't allowed to vote. Invisible people aren't given special payments from the government and invisible people aren't allowed government provided lawyers even when everyone else isn't allowed one.

Fact of the matter is Aboriginals get a LOT of liberties afforded to them, a LOT of them. There is a great inequality going on which is now in the favour of Aboriginals and they have the nerve to complain and say they're invisible? WTF? And they want a treaty allowing them to take some powers away from the state governments because they were here first? They're not even joking, they're being serious..

Seriously, how many of them where alive in 1788 when Australia was colonised by the British? Oh right that would be zero. Ok, so what about the generation immediately after that, how many of those are alive today? Oh right, that would be zero. So what they're saying is NO LIVING Aboriginal has EVER lived in an Australia which wasn't colonised by the British. But beyond that, NO LIVING Aboriginal has EVER lived in an Australia which didn't contain WHITE AUSTRALIANS, that is to say white people BORN in Australia. Excuse me but if you've never known a world other then the one you live in now outside of stories, then seriously what makes you think for a second you have a right to go back to it?

EVERY country on the planet has at some stage in its history had people who invaded and took over. Deal with it. Stop living in a past that you've never known, we're talking about something almost 300 years ago here!! Seriously! You don't deserve ANY special rights at all, NONE!

You're an Australia, no better than any other Australia. Stop making excuses to get special treatment, because nothing is going to make all the white people pick up and leave, nothing is going to turn the clock back 300 years and NOTHING is going to make Aboriginals in charge of Australia. Deal with it.

I'm getting fed up with all this nonsense, it's seriously time to move on with yourselves. Stop beating each other up and breaking the law. Stop getting drunk off your head all the time and chroming. Stop all the anti-social behaviours and blaming white people for them. Take some responsibility for your own damn actions. GET A JOB! And don't give me some crap about no one will give you a job because you're Aboriginal because that's just utter bullshit now days. Sure there was once a time that was true, but now days it's an utter lie. Not only will employers give Aboriginals a go if they have the right skills, but there are even employers and jobs that ONLY aboriginals are allowed to apply for, which in itself is absolute bullshit. Apparently the anti-discrimination laws don't apply if you're a healthy, normal, fully functional white person who is discriminated against.

I'm tired of the excuses from Aboriginals, and I think most Australians are getting fed up with them too. There were a lot of people 10 years ago who were behind the Aboriginals, who helped fight for their rights and junk who now can just see a lack of movement by the Aboriginals themselves to better themselves. People who once backed Aboriginals, can now just see Aboriginals are all about excuses and getting something for nothing. It's stupid and it needs to end.

And I'm sorry but none of this is racist. Racism means that I am prejudice against someone because of their race. I don't dislike Aboriginals, I'm not trying to harm them, I'm not saying they shouldn't have equal rights, I'm not trying to belittle them or anything else along those lines. What I am saying is that they are getting ridiculous in their claims and their demands. What I AM saying is that instead of talking about something from 300 years ago, instead of talking about how different they are and their delusional land rights, they need to accept themselves as AUSTRALIANS. They need to accept the COUNTRY THEY LIVE IN and they need to focus on how they are the same as other Australians, what they have in common with other Australians and just become productive, useful members of society.

That's a decision each individual person in the Aboriginal community will need to make for them self. That instead of sitting around fighting to have more power and junk, put all that energy into bettering the country for ALL Australians not just a select minority. If we want to stop racism to stop then those who feel persecuted against have to stop making themselves out to be so different. Stop going on that you're black, you're aboriginal, you need this special treatment or blah blah blah. Just get on with it and people will follow suit. Geez, common sense much.

As a growing number of elderly and obese people purchase mobility scooters one can't help but notice the extreme public nuisance and safety risk they cause. Here we have vehicles which have some pretty powerful electric motors in them these days and are built very sturdy; mix that into a pedestrian situation and you have a recipe for injury.

I've noticed a growing trend of those using mobility scooters to both hog up the entire foot path. In addition the trend includes have no consideration or regard towards the safety of those of us who aren't so lazy as to be using one of these vehicles. There have been many times when I have been walking along the foot path, or even at the store when someone in a mobility scoot will come hooning along full pelt and force me out of the way unless I want to be run over. There has even been an incident when such a person clipped the side of Dee's pram.

These are vehicles plain and simple; anything capable of moving faster than the AVERAGE person can walk shouldn't be allowed in pedestrian situations. Any vehicle capable of moving faster than the average person can walk should be confined to ones personal residential property and the bike lane. Honestly the only thing that has stopped me from punching some of these people square in the face is the fact that the ones I've come across are elderly. I was always brought up to respect elders, so I have no choice but to just

What's even more concerning and somewhat puzzling is the looks people using these things give you. It's like they look down at anyone who walks. It makes you wonder if we're actually developing a society which far from wanting to slim down, actually looks down on people who live active healthy lifestyles.

A reminder for parents to stay vigilant while their children are on the internet came this week from a somewhat unexpected source. It seems a Pennsylvania school is being sued after the deputy principle went ahead and punished a 15 year old student for "inappropriate behaviour" while he was in his BEDROOM. The "inappropriate behaviour" is of course rumored to be in the context of self pleasure.

How did the deputy principle even know about this event taking place you ask? It seems the webcam in the school provided macbook was remotely turned on allowing live, remote viewing. The deputy principle was certainly all to happy to furnish the boy with photographic evidence.

The FBI have now been called in to investigate the potential breech of multiple federal and state laws. The scary thing is it isn't isolated to this one child. There have actually been rumors going around the school between students that the teachers were spying on them through the webcams with a large amount of students claiming the little green activity light on their webcam would turn itself on randomly.

But beyond the obvious privacy issues this sparks off I fail to see where any one at the school thought that had not only the right, but responsibility to discipline a child for actions taking place in their own home. Their authority ends at the school gate as far as I'm concerned. What a child does whilst in the care of their PARENTS is certainly none of the schools business. The school district board now claims to have disabled the feature, but given they had denied it's existence for months, and are trying to cover up this whole indecent I really don't believe much they have to say.

This is certainly a case in proof that you really CAN'T allow your child, even teenager, alone with a computer that is connected to the internet. Of course that doesn't mean you have to sit next to your teenager while they muck around online like you would a younger child, but it does mean computers with internet access should be in high traffic walk ways of the house. In this way you can glance at their screen (and the activity light of the webcam) every time you walk passed. If they're rushing to close something down when you do, then you know you need to investigate further.

The internet can be an utterly powerful tool, which enables better education, flow of truth and friendships. But it does need to be understood properly BEFORE you mess with it, and children (and teenagers) need to be supervised while using it and taught proper, responsible usage skills.

iTWire Article 1
iTWire Article 2

When it comes to the health of your unborn baby you want to do everything in your power to ensure nothing goes wrong. Unfortunately there is so much confusion out there these days about food, that it's hard for most people to know if they're doing the right thing; nutrient wise for their baby. The good news is that most nutrients the baby needs will go to it, before they go to you. Your baby is also capable of stripping nutrients from you body to ensure it has everything it requires. But there are some nutrients which your body may not contain enough of that the baby will suffer for.

Nutrients like folic acid are important for good brain and nervous system development, including healthy spinal fluid. Iron carries blood around both your and your babies bodies, of which without you're both doomed. Unfortunately most pregnant women are deficient in both of these nutrients. It is for that reason that all pregnant women are recommended to take prenatal vitamins. The old thing is however, even though doctors have been giving out these recommendations for years the rate of uptake aren't anywhere near where they should be.

It's very telling to note that by taking a simple vitamin tablet daily the chances of your baby developing a birth defect such as autism drop to incredibly low levels very close to zero percent. Yet still we have percentages of these birth defects which show people simply aren't taking the medical advice to take a vitamin during pregnancy. It's almost unfathomable to me that anyone could be that careless in today's world.

As the number of obese and morbidly obese persons begin to rise and the United States of America even have to create a new category called SUPER morbidly obese for those people who weigh in the vicinity of a TON (that's as heavy as a small car!) you have to wonder, does the government have a roll to play?

While we all like to think we're in charge of our on destinies, our past influences our decisions far more then we'd like to think. If for example you grew up in a household where it was junk food every night and sports weren't encouraged, then guess what you're likely to be like as an adult? Even more so, guess what you're likely to be like as a parent?

I do agree that the individual needs to make their own decisive changes in their life. Over weight and obese people need to exercise, with an active lifestyle. If you feel self conscious about exercising in public or like Sarah you have in your head that walking places is "scummy" (which of course it isn't, I walk a lot and I'm certainly not scummy) then you could always buy a treadmill or other at home exercise equipment until you feel more self confident. The families of Morbidly and super morbidly obese people; people who can't even get out of bed due to their shear weight; need to stop enabling their food habits. If you can't get out of bed then you'll eat what you're given. People need to get up and move around, they NEED to exercise, daily and develop an active lifestyle so that exercise becomes a part of every day things instead of a chore they have to schedule in separate to everything else.

But I also think government has a role to play. It is clear at this point people are NOT going to change on their own, they need a good hard kick in the right direction which is where government comes in. There are several measures governments in the western world need to take.

(1) P.E. before school for pre-school, primary school and high school students. That used to be a part of schooling in the 70s and it worked well. Governments cut it to free up money, but it was actually a very valuable tool. Not only will it mean every child exercises daily, but it means they will be able to concentrate better in school, be more confident and are far more likely to carry on the approach into adulthood.

(2) The development of more Parks and sporting fields. There are some areas where there is a distinct lack of these sorts of facilities and without them people are unable to include certain activities in their lifestyle which would aide in the weight-loss problem. Sports are a major part of combating obesity, so without a facility to hold sporting events people can't expect to be healthy for very long.

(3) Proper dietary and exercise education. For far to long people have been going on about diet. About cutting foods out and limiting calories. This is a MAJOR factor in why we have the obesity problem the western world is facing today. Our bodies have evolved in a way that requires us to move around and use energy. But our society has evolved in such a way that we don't really move around and use energy anymore. This is the BIGGEST systematic problem of all and the REAL cause for the obesity problem.

You can attempt to blame fast food all you like, but the fact of the matter is the average diet in the 50s contained FAR more calories and FAR more cholesterol then we consume today. Our lack of movement is the huge problem. Food isn't the enemy it has been made out to be, it's simply food. ALL food is perfectly find in MODERATION. Too much of anything even carrots will cause you problems. In this way government should educate at the primary school, high school and adult levels about the importance of MODERATION and ACTIVE LIFESTYLE.

(4) Legislation making it a crime for gyms and weight loss services to give INCORRECT information on weight loss or to misrepresent the facts should be brought forward. It should be a crime for a weight loss service to continue the lie that it's all about diet and you need to cut out foods and calories.

(5) Cooking classes should be reintroduced to schools. One of the biggest reasons fast food has become so popular is people have lost the skill of home cooking. If we teach it to our children in a proper way they are more likely to make good food choices.

(6) Amendments to the child protection laws to include obesity. Children can only become obese through ineffective and neglectful parenting. If you are teaching your child the correct eating and exercise habits then there is no possible way you child can become obese.

(7) Legislating more strongly about the advertising of food. NO FOOD products of ANY kind should be advertised during children's television viewing times for example. Children shouldn't be in the drivers seat, that's the parents job, therefore children shouldn't be advertised to.

(8) Parenting classes, perhaps mandatory, for people with new babies. These classes would address general issues like diet and exercise, conflict negotiation, basic first aide, child development, looking at things through your kids eyes on their level and ideas about games that can be played with your child at different stages of development.

(9) The banning of gastric bypass surgery. It doesn't do anyone any good in the long run and is bound to have some undesirable long term side effects.

I read an article today in iTWire which suggested that Google were hypocrites by opposing the Australian governments planned mandatory internet filter. The article claims that because Google filter their YouTube videos (or more over what they actually do is selectively take down videos which violate their Terms Of Service) that they are no different from the proposed nation wide mandatory internet filter. What an absolute joke of so called reporting that was. They couldn't have gotten that piece anymore wrong and have just made their entire publication look ridiculous as a result.

Google are a single company, a company from which you have a choice to use or not to use. If you don't like the terms of service on YouTube there are literally thousands of other video hosting sites on the internet, all with their own spin on acceptable terms of service. So if in fact you want to post something that YouTube doesn't allow there is always a place somewhere else on the internet that does. And heck if you really can't find someone to host your video, you can always host it yourself. So my first point of order is CHOICE! You as the consumer have a CHOICE as to which websites you frequent with your views. If the Terms of Service for a particular website weren't acceptable then they wouldn't become very popular, but the CHOICE for those who DO want to engage that site remains.

The ISP based GOVERNMENT internet filter in Australia however is MANDATORY. ALL ISPs will have to engage it into their system and ALL Australians will have to suffer through it. Meaning that you have NO CHOICE. The government gets behind the wheel of the drivers seat telling you what is and isn't acceptable and whether we like it or not we are forced to accept their decisions. This is dangerous for a number of reasons, not just because of the censorship it hales but also because it dangerously gets people hooked on not having to make a decision anymore or take responsibility for the consequences. Under such a scheme it would no longer be the parents fault if little billy looked at a porn site because his parents failed to supervise him adequately whilst he used the internet, instead it would now be the governments fault for not blocking the site out in the first place. Dangerous territory folks.

The second thing that differentiates google from the internet filter is that YouTube is NOT googles only asset. They have literally hundreds of them now. Their biggest asset being their Search Engine which the iTWire article strangely lacks mentioning. Google Search and it's variant Google Image Search both have the option to turn off "safe search" filtering allowing FULL access to the internet. Type in any keyword from the internet filters "Restricted Content" list into Google Search and you'll get back thousands if not millions of results. Google don't make judgments about your character or effect how you use the internet. They don't squash your voice.

The mandatory internet filter on the other hand does squash your voice. The Australian Media & Communications Authority (AMCA) which is currently in charge of rating TV and radio content would be in charge of rating and blocking out INTERNET content as well in much the same way the rate TV. The government have failed to realise that the internet is a vastly different medium to TV and can not and should not be subject to the SAME rating policy. If Senator Conroy has his way the internet will be G rated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Websites engaging in legal adult services like legal pornography will be blocked if they don't verify your age first by asking for your credit card details. Gone will be the free porn sites from Australian views. In addition, any pornographic content, even those who do verify age which can be classified as X-rated (that is shows full frontal sex scenes instead of hiding away the action) will be blocked.

This same strategy applies to legal gambling websites, and any other content you wouldn't want a 9 year old child seeing. If someone in a forum somewhere discusses how valid for example the terrorist nature of the 9/11 attack that forum page can and probably will be blocked under the filter. In direct contrast Google would still serve that page up indiscriminately. Anything the government deems to be racist, prejudice or discriminate in nature ban and will be blocked under the filter. So for example if you don't like the immigration policy Australia is currently engaging and the flood of Indians it has brought into our country and you write about it in your blog, it can and WILL be blocked by the filter because someone could wrongly view that as racism.

And while I don't in anyway agree with or endorse their politics or views, even sites which hate certain groups in society have their place on the internet. I don't agree with what they have to say, so I would never visit such a website, nor would the majority of our community. In fact the only people who WOULD visit such a website would be those who ALREADY feel that way. But just because I don't agree with their point of view doesn't mean they don't have a right to it. Who is Senator Conroy to say what people CAN and CAN'T talk about?

This is a filter which contrary to what the iTWire article claims will NOT be transparent. The blacklist used in the filter will NOT be publicly available. Think about it, why would you not make the list publicly available if you are innocently blocking out ONLY content which the community could understand why you blocked it. Not only is there the clear historical danger of this turning into a filter which blocks out everyone who speaks against the government, it's political, social or economic views or anything else they don't like; but it also has the fowl whiff of such an event in the making. China ringing any bells to anyone?

And while I will admit I do NOT agree with everything Google do (some of their privacy policy models for example spring to mind) in general they genuinely seem committed to a better working, more accessible and easier to use internet which sponsors freedom of speech and expression for all. It is because of this reason, and the millions of dollars Google has to put into lobbying the government for changes to the filtering legislation that I am glad to have Google onside. So thank-you Google for joining the fight to keep the internet free for everyone.

Links;

iTWire Article

I seemed to get a better response (although limited) from embedding use a youtube video instead of a vimeo one. If you like the video please be sure to rate it up. Cheers guys and be sure to check out the special ending.

The long talked about and much contested Australian mandatory internet filter has new opposition in the form of the "Australian Library and Information Association and Inspire Foundation". Dubbed the 'Safer Internet Group' and with members such as web giants Google and Yahoo! the group actually stand a good chance at achieving their objectives, which would see a revision of the legislation to better target illegal acts such as child porn while leaving the rest of the internet open, uncensored and free to use.

The filter works in the same way any home blacklist software on either your modem/router or home PC does. The government plan to place URLs of websites they and the public find which you wouldn't want a child to see onto the black list. Once on the black list no one in the country will be able to view the site or any pages listed on it. This I believe is why companies Google and Yahoo! are stepping in, because at the end of the day it would hurt their bottom line.

Take for example if the URL to a specific YouTube video was placed on the list, this would have the effect of causing ALL users who visit YouTube to pass through the filter leading to YouTube videos that aren't blacklisted under the filter not loading and a general slow down of the site. Independent testing by the government in Tasmania in 2009 showed the filter would also significantly slow down general web usage, dropping your speed by 30% during normal usage periods and during high traffic periods by up to 70%!

The Safer Internet Group is points out something I have argued since the inception of this filter, stating

"As a large proportion of child sexual abuse content is not found on public websites, but in chat-rooms or peer-to-peer networks, we know the proposed filtering regime will not effectively protect children from this objectionable material,"

and continuing

"In fact, the policy may give parents a 'false sense of security' encouraging them to reduce their supervision."

Under this filter arrangement websites of a criminal nature will NOT be mandatory passed on to the police, they will ONLY block the content under the filter and leave the matter there. The AMCA (the government body responsible for rating commercial TV and radio) will manage the filter and attempt to apply the same guide lines to the internet that apply to TV. Meaning if they find something you wouldn't want your 9 year old to see, then no one in Australia can see it either, regardless of age.

As I have already previously stated, if the goal is ultimately to stop cyber crime there are FAR better and more effective ways of achieving that goal than instituting a mandatory filter across the internet. Education is key, explaining to the general public internet safety, about email scams, phishing and so forth. It troubles me that there are still grown adults who will today fall for a Nigerian 419 scam (The ones where they say you've won a stack of money, but you need to give them a few grand to collect it). And the filter isn't designed to combat these types of problems, in fact it really isn't designed to combat ANY kind of truly harmful cyber crime.

Kiddie porn will still be just as prevalent as it is now, but legal porn won't be viewable. Everyone will still get just as many spam and scammer emails as they are right now, but watching a legitimate video YouTube will become slow and tiresome. Phishing websites will still continue to exist as often by the time anyone figures out it's a phishing website the phishers have already abandoned the site in search of the next prize. Yet internet banking will take forever (opening people using wireless internet to even future hacking attacks and fraud).

The ONLY criminal activity that I can see the filter would actually combat is the downloading of copyrighted materials such as music, movies, games and software through bit-torrent sites and so forth. But again, that will only stop the use of it in a web based way, it will NOT stop peer-to-peer downloading using software like LimeWire. Beyond that, it will all be business as usual to the cyber-crime world. The ONLY people who are impacted by this filter are the law abiding Australian public whom will lose their right to freedom of information. Not only will legal porn sites be blocked, but so will any sites which even so much as TALK about things that are "undesirable". This includes NEWS sites and BLOGS which are seeking to educate on the issues surrounding a criminal activity or just talking about a criminal activity in a negative light.

Think about it, all those websites giving you tips on how to avoid pedophiles getting in touch with your children, clearly community education groups, being added to a blacklist that no one can visit. How does that make logical sense?

Thankfully with the "safer internet group" lobbying the government, combined with the legal action the Australian Internet Services Association are taking to try and block the filter things should hopefully change on this front. Hopefully someone amongst this group can get Senator Conroy to understand he does NOT know what is best for Australians better than they do themselves, nor does he know what is best for our children better then we their parents do. Lets hope they move fast on this though, as the legislation only needs to pass through the senate before it's law and is already scheduled to be in place by the end of THIS YEAR!

Links;

iTWire Article

The data coming out of the United States is showing the economy is beginning to improve, but what does this mean for the average joe? The unemployment rate is showing it's first real signs of beginning to fall, which I can only assume means it's becoming easier to find a job in America. I have no doubts however that there are still a lot of people hurting financially having lost everything.

I find it appalling under those circumstances that the board members of banks and financial institutions who caused this whole mess, the same group of companies that the US government had to bail out in the the order of trillions, received bonuses at the end of 2009. Bonuses for what exactly; crippling the global economy and causing financial distress to billions and causing millions to become homeless? It's moments like these that make government regulation of financial services sound like a good idea.

None the less there are signs of hope on the horizon. Things are improving, and regardless of the distress and pain being caused now, and the loss of the past, the future looks bright. Now is when things can really start to be rebuilt for the individual. With work comes hope and the promise of a better tomorrow. We can only hope.

In 2009 the Australia Federal Police raided 20 residences across Sydney and Melbourne after a massive operation looking for terrorists. 5 immigrant men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. This is the FIRST recorded time in Australia's history that ANYONE has attempted to commit an act of terrorism on Australian soil. A HUGE stock pile of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition was found at the homes of the men as well as stock piles of chemical agents used in the production of explosives.

The 5 men subsequently CONFESSED to their terrorist plot, explaining to Australia Federal Police offices (ON RECORD) that they had planned to attack the Hollingsworth Army Barracks in Sydney, take the complex over and hold Australia at random with it. That's right, they wanted to take over an entire Army base, and with the amount of ammunition and explosives they had stock piled, it was certainly something that they were likely to have achieved should they have been able to execute their plan.

Fast forward now to earlier this week when the 5 men were sentenced to jail. Individually the men received sentences ranging from as little as 17 years to a measly 21 years MAXIMUM jail time! That is to say, that is the MAXIMUM amount of time they can be held for these crimes, but can be paroled much earlier. With such like sentences it isn't any wonder the men were laughing and smiling in court while their sentence was handed down. The men have maintained the whole time that they HATE Australia, resiting exactly that publicly as late as just before they were sentenced.

To me this is absolutely INSANE! How can people convicted of conspiring to murder Australian soldiers on Australian soil, to hijacking an ENTIRE military base and holding it for ransom be give such absolute light sentences. These are the sorts of people you either want to execute under the treason act (They're immigrants who have undergone citizenship of all things) or jailed for their ENTIRE life without chance of parole.

Was the judge off his rocker with this one or what? Does the judge honestly think they're going to come out of jail and not want to commit another act of terrorism? I'm sorry but these are the sort of people who hold conviction to this sort of plan. Sticking them into an Australian jail is only going to make them more angry with Australia and more committed to killing Australians. This is wrong on so very many levels and puts our nation at risk in the future.

I don't even get the logic of the terrorists here; I mean they're a group of men who have immigrated to Australia with their families from a poorer country. They have been given multiple opportunities they would not have been granted any other way. We have welcomed them as citizens and they have undergone at their own free will that process. And yet they hate Australia? I'm sorry but why is that exactly? And more over, if you hate us so freak'in much the answer is simple, don't come here And if you get here and then realise you don't like Australia...LEAVE! Is it really that hard a concept to get? I think it's an easier concept to grasp then learning how to make complex explosive devices and do surveillance on a military base.

The government needs to step in here and declare this a matter of national security. The men need to be remanded in custody for the remainder of their natural lives. Unless this happens (and honestly I can't see it happening) expect a terrorist attack on Australia in around 21 - 22 years time.

I've embedded using YouTube this week to see how well it's received. I want to see if more people will watch and share the video if I embed with YouTube instead of vimeo. If you like this video, please be sure to rate it 5 stars and pass it on to as many other people as you can. Thanks

I recently seen a guy by the name of Jonathan Safran-Foer (No, not John Safran the mega awesome comedian, another guy), on The Colbert Report and again at 1am on Big Ideas on the ABC. He's written a book, which I must say I have not read, and he has started on a bunch of keynote addresses as part of a book tour. It's from these keynote addresses that I want to talk about today. See Jonathan has decided eating meat is really bad, but instead of taking a confrontational stance like PETA would, he's trying the buddy buddy, logic path to try and turn people vegetarian.

A vegetarian human race would be a terrible thing, and I hope I don't live to see a day when the majority of people are sustained on a vegetarian diet. I've actually downloaded one of his keynote addresses, and I'll prove you with a link to download it yourself and watch it. Does Jonathan seem like a nice guy? Sure, he seems like a great, normal guy. Does he present a halfway logical argument, sure I'll concede that too. But that doesn't mean some of the things he says aren't lies? No, it certainly doesn't. Does that mean that his way of thinking is the only way of thinking, the most logical or the best way of thinking? No. And I also MUST point out that MOST of his arguments are for things happening either solely in the USA or only in small scale in other parts of the world.

So the major thing Jonathan talks about is how bad Factory farming is. How it's bad for your body, bad for the environment, bad for the animals involved. I'm not arguing that point, in fact I agree totally with him, factory farming is bullshit and should be banned. But that doesn't then mean the only option in vegetarianism, nor does it mean that vegetarianism is better or healthier or that the same sorts of problems don't exist in the fruit and vegetable farming world. I don't know how much research Jonathan has put into fruit and veg, but he certainly isn't talking about all the bullshit happening there.

He makes great repetition of the fact that turkeys can't reproduce naturally anymore because their bodies are so distorted; but fails completely to mention that MOST of the fruit or vegetables you buy in the supermarket now days (and this IS a global issue) are genetically altered so they can't reproduce anymore. Their seeds are sterile, due to what is known as a terminator gene which has been introduced to all the grains and most fruit and veg so that farms have to continue to buy seed each year.

He talks about how animals in factory farming require antibiotic shots to survive their conditions, but fails to mention the genetically altered crops which now produce and excrete their own insecticides and herbicides. For a man who claims to want a balanced discussion on the issue, he doesn't seem to be talking much of a balance argument. Indeed there are countless genetic modification to the fruit, veg and grains you eat every day and in much larger quantities than you do meat. It is a LIE to say that fruit, veg and grain is healthy for you when there is evidence starting to come through connecting these wide spread genetic modifications with numerous health issues.

And while there MAY be a couple of factory farms in Australia I know very confidently they are very uncommon. I know extremely confidently that when I go to woolies, coles, IGA or even my local butcher that the meat I buy will come from an animal which has been able to graze, which was fed grain and grass/hay. I've seen the process, I know how it works over here.

Which leads me to my first main point; Just because factory farming is a bad idea, doesn't make eating meat a bad thing. In fact as I've talked about in previous posts meat, particularly red meat is an important part of your diet. Your human body has evolved in an omnivorous way, and without meat in your diet there are loads of things that can go wrong. Your iron levels plummet (unless you eat huge amounts of veg; eg 14.1Kg of broccoli has the same iron content as 500g of steak), you won't have any animal protein in your diet (which actually your body has evolved to use best), amongst a number of other things which I've already talked about in previous posts.

To me a FAR more logical stance to take to factory farming, far from deciding to not eat meat anymore (which lets face it would be nothing more than some sort of deluded protest) is to fight to have those commercialised and industrialised farming practices BANNED. THAT is the logical conclusion, to fight for farming returned to sustainable ways. Jonathan touches on that for only 20 seconds in response to someones question and remains impartial to it.

It is a LIE to state that humanity needs to become vegetarian in order for our continued existence. We don't. What we DO need to do is control our population and our wastage better. Explain to me how ANYONE thinks it's reasonable that 1/3 of the global human population lives in the tiny country of India. Clearly over populated countries like India and China need to look at how to stop their population problems (and no immigrating to other countries is not a solution, we need LESS births). Explain to me also why ANYONE thinks it's reasonable that the USA uses 1/4 of the GLOBAL resources, and WASTES in the quantities it does.

Drop the population to sustainable levels and the amount of wastage to almost zero; if not zero itself; and you immediately need to produce far far less food to feed them. And the thing is that over population of humans plus wastage are major problems not just for food production but in every part of the environment. If we don't fix those 2 fundamental things then the earth will die taking us and every other creature along with it. So it is a MASSIVE lie to say if we all turn vego everything will be ok, because that simply isn't the case.

I also reject entirely the comment made by Jonathan that humanity is the stewards of the earth. That is perhaps the BIGGEST lie propetuated by humanity, particularly animal rights groups. It is a LIE to say that humanity is special, different (in a way that makes us superior) or separate from other animals. And is certainly a lie to say that humans are the only animals capable of choosing what their diet will contain. My best example of why that particular point is a lie is that my dog is currently experiencing a moment in time where he is choosing NOT to eat the dog food I provide him and instead trying to get hold (by whatever means necessary) foods like crisps and pizza.

That is a conscious choice HE has made. In fact I have no doubt that any animal when presented with a seemingly endless choice and variety of food would be capable of making dietary choices on their own accord (and yes sometimes good choices and sometimes bad choices, just like humans). The biggest lie ever invented is that you're somehow special. You're NOT! If for example human only disease wiped humanity off the planet tomorrow, no other creature would blink an eyelid, except perhaps in relief. The fact of the matter is humanity is as far from special as it gets, humanity is also as far from good for the planet as it gets too.

Humans have NO extra rights, no special responsibilities, none of that. It's all LIES! We do not have the right nor responsibility to "cull" (which is a polite way of saying massacre) the populations of other animals; especially when ours is so over populated. If we want to cull animals, lets start with ourselves. If everyone who thinks culling other animals simply picked up a gun, stuck it to their head and pulled the trigger, then we'd at least be on the way to getting our population in check . That isn't to say I think we should cull humanity, but we certainly shouldn't be culling another species. The day that humanity realises just how far from special they are, how intelligent other animals actually are and honestly how stupid and insane humanity actually is will be the day the earth moves forth.

I also reject Jonathans idea that the only reason humans hunt is for thrill. That's absolute bullshit. THAT IS A LIE! What's to say a hunter doesn't grow his own fruit and veg? In fact hunting is natural, it's how humanity was built. It's fairer on other animals, much fairer than penning animals in and then killing them. It also means you can get close to nature, close to your roots. You can most certainly kill to eat. Think of it this way, a vegetarian or vegan makes a conscious decision to only eat plants, even when that means going out of their way, even when there is plenty of other food down at the local supermarket. A hunter can be the same, in that they may sure have a supermarket within shopping distance, but they can make a conscious decision to hunt their meat instead of buying it from the supermarket.

In fact Jonathan Safran-Foer introduces NO new arguments to the table. He is the same old vegetarian coming with his arguments why everyone else should be the same way as he is. He pretends to not try and get other people to be like him, but if this was truly the case there would be no book, there would be no keynote addresses and this post wouldn't exist because I would never have heard of him. Fact of the matter is, yes the people who operate factory farms lie and yes the state of the food system (like basically EVERY OTHER SYSTEM) in the United States of America is broken. But it's also fact that Jonathan Safran-Foer is trying to convert you, it's also fact that he (like all vegoes) tells as many (if not more) lies than the people who run the factory farms.

Links;

Jonathan Safron-foer's keynote @ Sixth & 1

Have you ever noticed that everything in our increasingly overly capitalist society can be assigned a monetary value? If a fall over in the street and break my ankle I can sue the council for money. If at work I lose a finger I can sue for money. In fact there is actually a list which the courts go by stating how much you can get for different injuries.

We buy and sell other animals, assigning them a dollar value; when lets face it they're actually another intelligent (much more so then most of us give credit for) sentential being. Heck we even assign our own lives a dollar value through life insurance and funeral insurance. It seems nothing is without a dollar value these days, think about it.

But how can you assign dollar values to some of this stuff. I watched an ad on TV for funeral insurance that said if your "loved one" dies in an accident you'll get $45,000 extra to "ease your pain and suffering". Yep, even your pain and suffering has a dollar value now days. But lets be honest, if you just lost you partner, the mother or father of your kids, they're dead, gone forever. Is any amount of money, let alone $45,000 going to ease your "pain and suffering"? It certainly wouldn't mine.

If Sarah died I can tell you no amount of money is going to make that good with me, nor should it be able to. Sure with Life Insurance the money helps you survive, but lets be honest here...if you have kids and a mortgage even half a million dollars isn't going to last you to long. No matter what, if you lose the bread winner in your family, your lifestyle is going to change. You will eventually need to go out and work, the amount of life insurance you receive only dictates how long you can delay it. It certainly doesn't ease the pain of losing your "loved one"!

So why do we do it? Why as rational but emotional beings do we attempt to assign a dollar value to everything in our world? And more importantly how do we expect that our children will grow to have good morals and values, as well as being emotionally well adjusted if they live in a world were everything is defined by how much money it's worth? What do we think happens to our attachments to each other, our attachments to the environment, our self value and emotional state if we have money attached to everyone? Together, we as a community design our own society, so we need to start asking these questions of ourselves before it's to late. Remember, extremism, regardless of it's reference is always a bad thing.

The Australian Film and Television industry have lost a class action against West Australian ISP iiNet. The brief charged iiNet with authorising it's users to breach copyright laws by allowing them to use bit torrent software.

With common sense on his side Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that iiNet was not responsible for the breach of copyright. Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft who launched the action are of cause very upset with the decision with their spokesman Neil Gane stating
"It's very difficult for the movie industries to compete with a free alternative which is perpetrated by theft"

You're right Mr Gane it is difficult to continue to make billion dollar returns on movies you make when people can download them for free. But with movies like Avatar making 1 billion dollars at the box office in the first 3 days of it's US release I hardly think the industry is in any real danger. What the industry needs to understand is that regardless of what laws the bring in, someone will always be offering free copies of the latest movies. And people will continue to download them, and that isn't always a bad thing. Most of the time these downloaded copies are of poor quality, and certainly never anything approaching High Def.

If people want to see a movie in good quality, their only real choice is to purchase it. So the Movie and Television industry need to look at these downloads as a way for people to preview a movie by watching it in low quality, then if they like the movie they'll of course be much more likely to go out and buy it. That said however, the price of cinema tickets and DVDs certainly doesn't help the piracy issue. Honestly why pay $20 each to go see a movie at the cinema when you can download the movie for free?

Heck, even if you couldn't download it for free, there would still be an almost equally sized amount of people not going to see movies at the cinema simply because they don't want to pay the exorbitant prices. At the end of the day, movies were invented as the working mans pass time, they were meant to be affordable. But instead modern studios have increased prices to unbelievable levels and they're still going up. Here's a hint for the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, drop the prices and you'll immediately see more people buying your products legitimately.

Thankfully todays judgement by Justice Cowdroy is likely to be adopted in the US, EU and UK as we all share and model copyright law from each other. This means ISPs a likely to remain without blame for the piracy issue.

Links;

ABC News Article

In the whole of Australia's history until 2009, terrorism in our country has been limited to 1 single plot to assassinate the Queen during a visit in the 1970's. Beyond that we have always lived in a safe, happy country, free from extremist views and forth coming violence.

In late 2009 that all changed when at least 5 Arab immigrants conspired to attack and take over hollingsworth military base. Fast forward to today and you'll note that two acts of terror occurred! First we have an attempted hijacking of a Sydney commuter bus by an immigrant man trying to escape police. While over in Darwin an Insurance building has been bombed! And while thankfully no one was fatally injured in either of these events, they do certainly highly a growing trend.

Here we have persons whom have immigrated into our country, committing acts of terror on our soil. A country which was previous a sanctuary from terrorism now exposed to it on our own soil. And I blame Kevin Rudd and his ridiculous approach to immigration. The simple fact of that matter is that it's precisely because of situations like this that until Kevin Rudd came along Australia had always maintained such a minimalist immigration policy.

Honestly, what does Australia need with 260,000 Indians a year? How does that help our country? It's time we took a real hard look at our immigration policy and set things right. The way things were, whether you agree with it or not, worked. It kept us and our way of life safe. Enter Kevin Rudd and his extremely liberal immigration policy and suddenly we have a growing trend of terrorism inside Australia. It's not racism, it's common sense. Large numbers of immigrants, especially when they can get in without proper security checks through student visas, will cause extremists to enter our country. We need to take a good hard look and decide if we want to continue our peaceful way of life, or whether we'd much rather plummet into a country plagued by terrorist attempts and inevitably terrorist successes. I know which I'd prefer, how about you?

It was "revealed" in todays Sunday mail (and I assume at least all other APP publications) that murdered multimillionaire businessman Herman Rockefeller met his killers through an internet sex site. The article continued he had "at least five (5) secret pre-paid mobile phones" and had "at least one mystery girlfriend".

The article also noted that Mr Rockefeller is a married man with 2 children before it continued to drag his name through the proverbial mud. I find it utterly appalling, that a journalist would stoop so low as to write such an article. A man has been killed, and I honestly don't see how his past transgressions are any of our business. Indeed, by making such public statements about the man when he has only recently been murdered must be causing untolled heart-ache and distress to his family.

And the worst part of the whole thing morally is that Herman Rockefeller isn't here to defend himself. At any rate I fail to see how the interworkings of anyones personal life, including their transgressions, where they don't directly effect public life, should become public knowledge. I'm sick of hearing about this or that persons sexual transgressions, it's none of my business nor is it any of yours. It only adds mountain to an already painful situation. It also cheapens the publication, reducing it to little more than a trashy tabloid magazine. I feel journalists should be legislated in such a way as to prevent them reporting on such things.

If it doesn't effect more people than a persons private family, then it honestly shouldn't be reported on.

Once again the media has attempted to state a debate about changing the Australian flag. There was once a time, when I was a teenager that I supported the idea of changing the flag. The argument that we aren't apart of England any more, so we shouldn't have the union jack on our flag, somehow used to make sense to my teenage brain. Thankfully however, age has set me straight, I no longer feel it's a good idea at all. Indeed now days I can't think of a worse idea and there is a great deal of logic to me thinking this way.

Most often the argument for keeping the flag realise entirely on our history, but while that argument is a very good one; I mean most of our grandfathers fought for the rights and freedoms that flag represented; it isn't the only argument for it not to change. I think the best reason for us not to remove the union jack is simply that contrary to what proponents of changing the flag might say, we are actually still technically part of England and the commonwealth. Now if we want to have a serious conversation about becoming a republic that is something completely different, and does not require us to change the flag at any rate. But certainly while we are still officially and technically a part of England and the Commonwealth then the union jack should remain in place without question.

Another quite major point is that Australia is only recently starting to make a name for itself and gain some respect on the international stage. Where previously we were thought of as some tiny backward country in the middle of the pacific, suddenly world powers are starting to sit up and take notice of us. We suddenly have the weight to have our say actually count for something and be included in some pretty important global discussions which we previously would have been excluded from. By changing our flag we seriously risk losing the respect of the international community.

Flags are the symbol of a nation, by changing it you risk sending a message of instability and/or the loss of national identity. If the international community were to think of us in such a way, we would lose serious political respectability and clout. It is extremely important for our nation and our region that Australia continue to have a voice on the international stage. If we lost it, then it would spell doom for our nation in a number of ways.

We would no longer have a say in the direction our country moves, instead going back to the days were we simply followed. Australia is a country of innovation and leaders, I don't think any one wants to go back to being sheep. But more than that our economy would crumble. If was became somewhat of a joke to the international community then we risk losing private, corporate investment in this country. Both from foreign companies already here and from those whom might otherwise have come in the future. Say what you will about foreign investors; but when it comes to the crunch they provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions of AUSTRALIAN jobs. Chances are that if you work for a large company then foreign investment has played a part somewhere in there. Changing the flag could threaten your job!

Another point of order is simply that there are no viable replacement designs. I find the suggestion we place the aboriginal "flag" where the union jack currently is offensive. Aboriginals had no concept of flags prior to European settlement, after which time they became incorporated under the Australian flag. The idea that aboriginals have their own flag is ludicrous and goes well to show their unwillingness to become a true part of this nation. There is no alternative to the current flag design that is viable! Without a viable alternative why is anyone even bringing up this debate in the first place? Seriously...

But mostly, the flag as we know it inspires pride by all Australians. It's a flag that celebrates our history; good and bad. It's a flag that our fathers and grandfathers have fought for; and some of them died for. It's a flag that helps define our national identity both locally and in the international community. You only need look around tomorrow (Australia day) to see the absolute pride that it helps to develop. Our flag is perfect the way it is and should NOT change. What should change however is this debate periodically being brought about by the media. I understand that they want news that will make you watch their show or read their paper, but honestly if this is the best they can come up with then it's no wonder their entire industry is in danger to bloggers, podcasters, vodcasters and amateur news distribution.

So I thought I'd start doing a weekly wrap-up by way of vodcast. We've had a bit of a problem getting the video on YouTube as it runs for 13 minutes and YouTube apparently don't want to know you if your video goes over 10 minutes. So contray to what the video says, currently you can't want this episode on YouTube. I will keep you posted as to developments on whether we decide to trim future vodcasts to fit youtube, or just give them the flick.

Black music like rap, hip hop and this new very of r'n'b are weird sure, and they suck big time. But what is even weirder and completely sad is when White people, especially young girls, try to immitate it. To bolster my case I submit the video I pulled off YouTube below. Note other then how stupid their lyrics are and how funny they look trying to be black, that they have completely messed up the chroma key.

What is wrong with vegetarians? They're like the bible bashes of the food world. It's like they feel, quite irrationally, they've found the answer to all their problems; and so they in turn feel (I suspect to cater for their own insecurities) that they have to force everyone else they come in contact with to be the same way.

And in much the same way as my soul isn't going to be saved by some moron who took a 2000 year old story book a little to literally, nor will my health be helped by turning into a bipedal cow. Indeed I find the "logic" behind a lot of vegetarians to be just as irrational as our Christian door knockers. Christians believing against all the evidence that Humanity is somehow special and separate from all other animals to me seems linked to the rather illogical belief of vegetarians that we shouldn't eat meat because killing animals is wrong?

Well I'm sorry to burst every bodies bubble but there is nothing special about humanity. Humanity isn't smarter, cooler nor endowed with special bits that other animals aren't. Humans are simply chimps, nothing more, nothing less. The sooner you get that, the better off the whole planet will be.

Now with that in mind, please take this into consideration. EVERY organism on the planet owes it's life to anothers death. Yes, even as a vegetarian you are feeding from death. Not only does the decay of an animal feed the soil and thus help plants to grow, but plants themselves are living, breathing organisms.

Plants breath Carbon Di-Oxide and exhale Oxygen only during the day. Upon night fall the process is reversed with plants breathing oxygen and exhale Carbon Di-Oxide. In addition plants move daily! Sure they can't uproot and go for a walk, but their extremities do ever so slowly move all day, every day. And the big one, plants have a nervous system. Now while there is no centralised brain, this does NOT rule out the chance plants could feel pain. There is certainly some evidence (such as reflex response; where by a plants pores close in what would be thought of as painful situations) that supports the idea plants could feel pain.

Just because you can't hear that carrot screaming as you gnaw on it doesn't mean it feels any less pain than the cow did. Indeed given the plant is often alive when it's eaten means if anything, it would be feeling far more pain. I don't know about you but I sure as heck wouldn't like to be alive when someone ate me. Face it, you aren't special. And face it, extinguishing life in order for you to live is what life is all about. It's just how it's meant to be. Deal with it

Now I'm sure there will be some vegetarians whom will point to health benefits. But fact of the matter is there are actually no proven health benefits to a vegetarian lifestyle. While there are some studies that show a longer life expectancy from vegetarianism; others clearly show a decreased one. Certainly as a vegetarian you are extremely likely to be deficient in many essential vitamins and minerals. If you're thinking multi-vitamin tablets then I should warn you that the good ones are made from killing animals and harvesting the minerals from the waste product. The synthetic made ones, well they usually just give you really expensive pee as your body can do little with them.

And while of course there are vegetable proteins available, your body has to work much harder in order to use them compared to animal proteins. Protein of course is what our body uses to regenerate cells and to create new ones. Proteins make up our RNA and DNA structures, as well as form enzymes for the processing and absorption of food. That is to say, they're incredibly importable to your diet. Not only does your body use animal proteins easier but it simply can't perform some of it's functions at 100% without them. In addition, did you know that there are some medical conditions that ONLY affect vegetarians?

Now none of this would bother me anywhere near as much if vegetarians kept their eating habits to themselves, and more over didn't feel the need to comment on mine nor anyone elses. I mean sure I think you're a bit of a brainless twit for being a vego; but I'm not about to shove my beliefs down your throat. I could, in the same way vegetarian protesters dump blood on people eating meat; dump soil or more over sap on them. But honestly other than a really funny video I wouldn't have much of a lot to show for it. Fact of the matter is what I eat is my business and not the business of anyone else.

Fact of the matter is there is no reason to turn into a vegetarian, be it morale, health related or otherwise. Fact of the matter is that as you can see from the teeth of every human, you're built to eat both plants AND meat. Fact of the matter is that the reason you started to feel better when you went on your health binge has more to do with the daily exercise and active lifestyle you now lead than how you've changed your diet. And the same being greatly responsible for all that weight you lost. Look sure, if you still want to be a vegetarian regardless of the facts that's fine, your choice. But please, give me and everyone else who isn't a vego the same respect we afford to you and spot ramming YOUR CHOICES down OUR THROAT! Make sense?

And in the same spirit, please do us all a favour and stop making stupid TV shows that attempt to make people feel bad and skew the facts in an attempt to push them into a vegetarian lifestyle. Because look, fact of the matter is, being healthy and being vegetarian have very very little to do with each other. Instead how about we make shows which encourage people to use common sense when eating and establish moderation. Because at the end of the day, moderation, linked with an active lifestyle is the true key to a healthy and happy life.

I subscribe to a number of Skeptic publications; and over the last year I've seen quite a number of articles published in those publications. I consider myself to be a skeptic, but I feel that perhaps there are a few people out there whom claim to be skeptic when really they only stand to debunk anything that threatens the status quo.

To me a skeptic is someone who doesn't just take what they're told by someone and accepts it. Instead, a skeptic will investigate, research and come to their own independent conclusion. To enter a situation with an unbiased and open mind, weigh up the facts and come to the simplest, most logical conclusion. But it seems to me there are quite a lot of people whom call themselves skeptics but really should be better known as debunkers. These are the sorts of people who go out of their way to try to prove that certain phenomenon, be it UFOs, ghosts, other paranormal, spiritual or mystical events, or things like swine flu vaccine being unsafe.

They're the sorts of people whom, instead of digging for the truth, will accept official versions of events from government organisations or other persons whom are invested in the cause. Debunkers are the complete opposite of a conspiracy theist, basically doing everything in there power to convince people that the status quo is the only logical answer. It's almost as if these people were employed by some interested party in order to persuaded the general public there is "nothing to see here". Of course I'm not actually suggesting this is the case, merely using the euphemism to highly how these people operate.

Increasingly I'm finding these sorts of people being published in one skeptic publication in particular; that being Skeptic Magazine. You may have heard their ad play on TopHogg FM from time to time. I am also finding these sorts of people representing skeptics everywhere on all manner of documentaries into the paranormal. Frankly, as an intelligent, well educated person, very capable of critequing and making up my own mind about events, I find some of the things these sorts of debunkers say offensive. They give the skeptic community an unwarranted perception of close minded, illogical fools.

Sometimes for whatever plausible reason, (for example the event happening as so often it is, a surprise and thus there being no camera handy) there may be little to no physical evidence. This however doesn't mean that it never happened, it just means further investigation and research may be warranted should the anecdotal evidence suggest so. This brings me to 2 quite major points.

(1) Science is far from having all the answers, regardless of what any scientist might suggest to you there is still a great deal about ourselves, our planet, our co-inhabitants and the universe around us that we simply don't understand, nor have come anywhere close to it. While humanity has spread to much of the earths land mass, we still find somewhere around 1000 new species a DAY! Most of them being insects sure, but there is still the odd larger animal in there. There is much that happens on the planet that humanity still has no answers for.

(2) Debunkers like to ignore anecdotal evidence all together, stating that it is often fraught with unreliability and thus can't be trusted of given any weight to. But I counter that statement with this simple fact. Very often our legal system uses anecdotal evidence as either part of, or even sometimes as their entire case against crime. While I concede that there are cases in nwhich due to this evidence innocent people are convicted of crime, but this is in the grand scheme of things quite rare. So thus I submit this question to you. Courts demand a high amount of reliability from the evidence they receive on a case, there are plenty of new technologies which are inadmissible in court because they aren't proven to hold high levels of accuracy. It, for example, took over a decade for DNA evidence to become something which was looked at in a court with weight. Yet anecdotal evidence has remained weighted and relied upon. If such evidence is anywhere near as unreliable as debunkers suggest, then how is it our legal system still uses it?

The fact of the matter is that there are SOME cases which debunkers dismiss due to anecdotal evidence and the lack of much in the way of the physical which do indeed warrant additional research and investigation. There are (while fewer still) some cases which while having the same amount of evidence as the previously mentioned, in their own right suggest through the anecdotal something extraordinary happening.

I am offended when debunkers try to pass off phenomenon as mass hysteria, collective imagination or some sort of psychological disorder. All too often I hear so called skeptics using such arguments to explain away UFOs for example. Trying to pass them off as a mix of collective imagination and mass hysteria. While I'm not going to say that little green men are flying all over the planet; I do find it insulting to my intelligence to be told these so called UFO phenomena are in the same category as "monsters" and "demons" as popular fiction.

To me communities telling stories about monsters between themselves or to their children, as well as stories about demons to help explain their world and scare people into a moral life; are completely different to someone telling me they seen a UFO. Now there might be a million other explanations for it beyond alien beings, but to rule it out as ever happening simply because it's only anecdotal in nature is very very wrong. A true skeptic would listen, look at how believable the story sounds and then, if believable perhaps investigate further, setting up equipment, tests or whatever is appropriate to document some form of physical evidence. I would suggest to you, never accept someone as a self professed skeptic if their mind is not open to possibilities.

So, you're a smoker and you've realised it's a bad idea. "Therapeutic" nicotine manufacturers such as nicobate would have you believe their products will help you achieve your goal of quitting. Thing is however, their products will do nothing to aid the quitting process and indeed in most people will actually hinder it.

These are products which claim they can help you "step down" by slowly lowering the dose of nicotine. The problem with this idea is smoking is an addiction, no different to being addicted to alcohol, heroin or any other drug. As a result you need to look at quitting smoking from this realistic point of view. Would you seriously suggest to an alcoholic that they should start the process if giving up by drinking a little less each month? Of course not, nor would you suggest a heroin addict should shoot up a little less each month, or a gamblaholic should enter casinos a little less each month... you get the idea.

In the same way this wouldn't work with those addictions because it continues the addiction and chemical dependency, drastically greatening the chances of "falling off the wagon". But above and beyond the chemical dependency, it continues the mental imagining which is most important to chance in order to shed an addiction. That is to say, while you continue to see yourself as a smoker, then you will continue to have cravings and thus will never be free.

Nicabate have recently brought out a new product called "pre-quit", the therapeutic nicotine to take while you're still smoking. Products like these clearly have an interest in keeping you addicted to smoking. There is of course a finite amount of smokers in the world and with levels of new smokers dropping, if companies like nicobate actually helped you stop smoking then they'd collapse as a company. They'd eventually simply run out of customers and no company, especially publicly floated companies are interested in such things.

Quitting smoking is surely a must, but products like nicobate aren't going to aid you in any way. Instead, the only true way to get over your addiction is to go cold turkey. Yes, it will suck, but no where near as much as if you continue smoking. Cold turkey will work, especially if you do it in such a way as to develop a view of yourself as a non-smoker. That is key! Without changing your view of yourself you'll never be free of the smoking bug and will eventually start again, even if you manage to stop for a period of time.

I found this video on Youtube and thought it was very good at highlighting a few good points in the creationist/evolution debate. Clearly it pushs towards evolution, but you didn't really think it might push toward creationism did you? lol.

So I was thinking about this Mandatory Internet Filter that Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy are bringing in to Australia and something dawned on me that hadn't before. See previously I was pissed off that this filter will stop Australians' seeing anything and everything that the ACMA decide someone under the age of 16 shouldn't see. Not just legal stuff, but just stuff in general that someone under the age of 16 apparently shouldn't see.

But it dawned on me that a filter of any kind has to take our information about where we're going online and what we're doing online and sort through it. Of cause due to the nature of the internet your ISP already has this information but under the privacy act can't do anything will it. But as this filter apparently exists to keep us safe from harm and includes sites which are illegal in nature; one would expect there to be logging going on.

Logging is the capture and storage of information pertaining to computerized activity, in this case being your online activity. It's something ISPs aren't allowed to do, but something the government do intend to do. It's bad enough we have companies like Google and Facebook giving us the online big brother treatment without our government giving us the same.

I for one think Australia is better than that. That we aren't a paranoid country, and up until now haven't had paranoid governments. The ability for a government to collate data about each households internet usage without criminal cause for line tapping, without the consent of those who occupy the household and on a mandatory basis is unconstitutional. Sure our constitution doesn't protect freedom of speech, but what the Australian constitution does protect is the individuals right to go about their business in a lawful manner without interference from a government agency.

Seriously, who voted for Kevin Rudd? Because everyone who did is a freak'in idiot. I tried to tell you all not to do it, I warned you he'd screw up Australia. He's more interested in playing fairy tale princess meeting "important people" and flying around the world than in anything that benefits Australians. This government artificially took Australia into a time of economic downturn through scare tactics and misinformation. It lost a lot of Australians their jobs and set us back quite dramatically. They then blew out the budget and put us into such heavy debt that our childrens children will still be paying it off.

But not only are they a clueless government, incapable of making a truly healthful decision, not only are they wasting billions of tax payer dollars, dollars you and I worked hard for, but they have also shown themselves to be a fascist, big brother government intent on controlling the populous at whole. This isn't what our fathers and great grandfathers fought and in some cases died for. They'd roll over in their graves to see the country like this. So thank-you to everyone who freely chose to vote for Kevin Rudd, because in that free choice you have doomed all Australians to have none.

As 2010 rolls in you may be feeling let down that the sci-fi future we were promised isn't here yet. I read an article today in the Big Issue which consisted of some guy bitching about just that very thing. But what you may have failed to realise is while we haven't gotten everything the jetsons promised, we're certainly on our way.

Ok so our skies aren't littered with hovercars flying around, but other than the fact that's clearly a good thing... you can actually purchase one. That's right they do actually exist and have done for over a decade! So why haven't they taken off (excuse the pun) you might ask? Well, other then the price tag; which is somewhere around 1.4 Million USD each due to the small amount made; you have to factor in that there is no infrastructure in place. I mean even if the price came down over night and everyone ran out and brought one, there'd be nowhere to land it (think about it the average yard gets smaller every year), nowhere to refill it's tank, nowhere to service it... There aren't any rules or legislation in place so it would currently stand as a plane and you'd need the appropriate licensing and have to submit courses and junk. You can get them, but honestly why would you want one?

Ok so we're not zooming around in the stars visiting other planets for holidays. But that actually might be closer than you think. Richard Bransons company Virgin have invested heavily into creating commercially viable rockets and space craft in which the average joe can afford to make it into space. He's getting VERY close! He craft can already make it into inner orbit! In the last decade we've also seen the Russian space program begin to take paid space tourists on some of their less intense missions. Ok so 20 Million dollars a pop is out of 95% of our budgets but space tourism certainly does exist and is a growing market.

Think about all the cool stuff that we have now days that didn't exist even 5 years ago let alone in the 70s, 80s and 90s! I mean we have mobile phones capable of video conversations, indeed the average mobile phone is capable not only of making a video call, but taking a large number of high quality photo's & video, listening to music, plugging into the GPS network, surfing the internet, checking email, play games and so so so very much more. With the aide of services like facebook, myspace and twitter we're able to keep everyone we know up to date with every last insignificant event that happens in our lives, regardless of where they or we are in the world.

With the aide of services like paypal, we're able to instantly and securely pay for products and services from the comfort of our own home. Indeed the market for internet shopping is growing exponentially. And computers have not only become more a part of our lives than sci-fi ever predicted, but they're capable of far more as well. Think about it, there is a computer in ever single aspect of your life now. Your car has one, your mobile phone is one, you probably own a netbook or a laptop, you probably have a desktop at home, your games console is one, you most likely use one at work in some facade. Computers are EVERYWHERE! They're in our factories, they're in our offices, they're in our schools, hospitals and basically anywhere else you can think of. And each one, connected to a world wide network.

And ok granted we don't drive around in cars that drive themselves yet. But again, they exist. In fact EVERY major car manufacture on the planet has had at least one vehicle capable of driving ITSELF in the testing phase for well over a decade. And yes our cars might still use petrol, but again that isn't because the technology isn't there. It's because of money that we're still stuck on the petrol powered combustion engine. Australia at least (I'm sure other countries are doing the same but I'm not well researched on the subject) is making a switch from petrol to hydrogen powered cars over the next 10 to 15 years. The switch will first move consumers to diesel and then to hydrogen. But hydrogen isn't the only alternative fuel source we have technology for. There are far to many to name them all! But examples are things like bio diesel or solar.

Solar power itself has made some amazing leaps in the last decade, and I'm excited about the commercial launch of the daisy solar panel which increases solar energy conversion by up to 90% while taking up less than 1/4 of the space of a traditional solar system.

Just think about all the literally millions of new inventions and technologist which have been developed over the last 30 years. The microwave oven for example. A device which automates the cooking process and reduces cooking time into a fraction of what it is in a conventional oven. Kevlar vests stop speeding bullets in their tracks. plasma, LCD and LED TVs which have made the TV thin enough to be hung from a wall like a picture. The exciting new world of 3D Television. Yes, that's right I said 3D television, and they're available right now! Sure with a price tag of $13,990AUD there isn't going to be a mass herd to the store to buy them, but just remember it was only 5 years ago that LCD TVs cost that much and look at them now.

In every aspect of life technology has advanced. So sure we aren't quite where sci-fi promised we would be, but we also have things that sci-fi writers never even thought of. So as we enter 2010 I reckon we should all just take a moment to reflect on all the advancements we've made in the last few decades and how much they've changed our lives. Lets just take that moment to give thanks to all the 10s of thousands of people whom put their blood, sweat and tears into creating these inventions and technologies. And then take a moment to dream about where we might be in another 10 years time!

The following letter is from a network engineer named Mark Newton whom has brought up multiple concerns about the internet filter with the AMCA. But instead of addressing these concerns, in true fascist nature Senator Conroy and his office have attempted to bully Mr Newton into a campaign of silence on the issue. I am reposting this letter as I feel it captures a great deal of the concerns at the heart of this issue. I have pulled this letter from homepagedaily.com

Senator Stephen Conroy

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Mark Newton's letter:

20 October 2008
The Hon Kate Ellis MP
Minister for Youth and Sport
161a Main North Road
Nailsworth SA 5083

Dear Ms Ellis,

I am writing to you to express my concerns about moves by Senator Stephen Conroy to implement the "clean feed" proposal described on page 5 of Labor's Plan for Cyber Safety by Senator Conroy prior to the 2007 election.

My objections to this policy are detailed below. In your reply to this letter, I would appreciate a direct, detailed response to each of these issues. I am making the assumption that collating such responses will be a simple matter, because a proposal as important as this one obviously wouldn't have proceeded as far as it has if these basic concerns had not been considered and alleviated. If that assumption is unfounded, then that fact should justify revisiting (or, alternatively, abandoning) the "clean feed" proposal.

While I approve of the general thrust of the Cyber Safety proposal, I have serious objections to the "clean feed" section, which will erect an online Government censorship regime in Australia for the first time.

I also have significant objections about the professional conduct of Senator Conroy as he has pursued this issue. The Senator has attacked critics by comparing them to child abusers; refused to provide details of his policy then maligned opponents for their "speculative" remarks; lied to the Australian voting public about the availability of an "opt-out" in December 2007; and failed to consult with the 21 million Australian stakeholders who will be most affected by this plan, in contravention of the Prime Minster's oft-repeated aim to implement a "Government for all Australians" [1, 2, 3]. Rather than addressing the serious policy objections which I outline below, Senator Conroy has preferred to respond with aggressive, offensive, extremist bluster.

The Government has not demonstrated a need for an online censorship regime.

While I accept that the presence of illegal material on the Internet is a cause for some concern, I'm appraised of two important points which the Government appears to have missed.

Firstly: Australians have been using uncensored Internet access for at least 30 years, and there's no evidence of a burgeoning problem concerning access to illegal material. I have been using the Internet almost every day since 1989 and have never seen any content that I'd expect to require Government intervention. Without demonstrating a need for this system, how can the Government credibly claim that it should be mandated?

Secondly: There is little evidence that Australian parents require Government assistance. Indeed, those who claim that parents require such assistance have a remarkable track record of being wrong.

In 1989 / 1990, the Senate Select Committee into Online Services carried out an enquiry into the nature of content available online, and made a rash of recommendations in favour of some kind of censorship scheme based on the expectation that unfettered access would harm the fabric of Australian society.

The passing of time has shown that 1990 Senate's concerns were completely wrong: Almost 20 years have passed since that enquiry, and Australians have enjoyed uncensored Internet access for the entire period. Society has not fallen apart, there is no emergency, children are not being raised in moral vacuums and turning into rapists and axe-murderers, parents are diligently and capably excelling in their efforts to raise their children into fine, upstanding citizens. Today's parents are comfortable with ubiquitous access to unfiltered Internet, having grown up using Google to assist with homework assignments, publishing blogs and websites, using email to stay in touch with friends and family, and treating the Internet in its current unfiltered form as a valuable resource for the education and social engagement of their children.

This fact is reinforced by the public's unresponsiveness to the previous Government's offer of free filtering software for family PCs. When only 140,000 users downloaded the free software over 12 months, and less than 29,000 of them were still using it three weeks later, Senator Conroy concluded that the $84M filtering software distribution plan failed because it wasn't mandatory, rather than the more rational conclusion that the failure of the initiative could be traced to lack of public desire.

The image of technologically-disconnected parents floundering helplessly in a sea of pornography as they fail to adequately raise their children is a reflection of the appalling lack of Internet-savviness of our politicians, not society at large. Politicians assume that parents are ignorant about the Internet because politicians are ignorant. Yet parents came to grips with it years ago; the last remaining social group in our country who expresses difficulty with the Internet appears to be baby-boomer Federal politicians, whose child-rearing days are mostly well behind them.

It is thoroughly insulting to Australian parents to undermine their efforts by asserting that the way to prevent societal decay is for the Government to step in and make decisions about the appropriateness of online content. That is a parent's role, not Senator Stephen Conroy's role.

The government has not demonstrated that mandatory online censorship is technologically feasibly.

Senator Richard Alston, in his tenure as Minister for Communications and the Arts, passed amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act in 1999. As accompaniment to that legislation, the Minister directed the ACMA (then ABA) to establish NetAlert, and for NetAlert to carry out periodic assessments of the "state of the art" of filtering technology.

Since that time, NetAlert and the Department have commissioned separate studies by the CSIRO, Ovum, and most recently RMIT and Enex Testlab. All of the studies have uniformly demonstrated that online censorship technology:

* slows down Internet access;
* inaccurately blocks content which should not be blocked;
* inaccurately fails to block content which should be blocked;
* is ineffective at inspecting or blocking "Peer to Peer" traffic that comprises over 60% of Australia's Internet traffic; and
* fails to accurately distinguish between legal and illegal content even when specifically configured with lists of illegal content under laboratory conditions.

The most recent trials, conducted in Tasmania by Enex Testlab earlier this year, found that the most accurate product tested incorrectly blocked 3% of innocent material, and incurred a "slowdown" performance penalty in excess of 70%, and failed to reliably block the ACMA's prohibited content list. It stuns disbelief that the Minister for Broadband would be interested in pursuing these systems whilst at the very same time advocating for a $20B National Broadband Network (NBN) intended to increase Internet speeds.

There is no evidence on the public record to demonstrate that mandatory online censorship is technologically feasible. Every time experts have been asked, they have uniformly concluded that it is not possible. Furthermore, advances in technology cause Internet speeds to increase faster then censorship systems' speeds, meaning that as time passes the performance penalty caused by these systems becomes worse.

It is very poor public policy to proceed with mandatory implementation of provably failed technology.

The government has not demonstrated that online censorship is effective.

Any Australian can obtain encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) access from the United States for less than $5 per month [1, 2]. This is the same technology that human rights activists use in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to hide their activities from the Government, and provides an effective, guaranteed bypass of any effort by any National Government to filter Internet content.

There is no requirement for complicated software to use these services, VPN clients are installed by default on all common Operating System platforms. Australians who wish to hide themselves from Government Internet censorship efforts are only a few clicks away from total anonymity.

The government has failed to consider unintended consequences arising from the policy.

In order to implement a censorship scheme, the ACMA will need to make its blacklists available to ISPs.

There are approximately 400 ISPs in Australia. Even if each ISP only has a handful of staff in a position to access routers and scrutinise network configurations, that still leaves several thousand ISP technical staff with full knowledge of the contents of the blacklist.

A moment of consideration of that state of affairs yields the unavoidable conclusion that the blacklist will be "leaked". Many sites on the Internet specialise in providing repositories of "sensitive" Government data for the purpose of providing public access to documents against Governments' wishes, and a Government blacklist is exactly the kind of content those sites exist to publish.

When the Government makes a mistake, it will be public [1, 2, 3]. It is simply not believable that putting the same people who called for the destruction of the Bill Henson photographic exhibit in charge of a blacklist of pornographic imagery can end well. It also strains credibility to assert that there is value in putting the people who decided that Mohammad Haneef should be pursued on terrorism charges, or that David Hicks should rot in Guantanamo, in charge of a list of illegal terrorist material. Governments of both sides have a long and distinguished track record of embarrassing failure in these areas, and the public is wise to be sceptical of moves to place further faith in the demonstrably flawed judgement of our public officials and political representatives.

Leaks have other hazards: It will only be a matter of time before someone, somewhere in the world, testifies in open court that they knew where to find child pornography due to the assistance and enablement of a leaked copy of Senator Conroy's Internet blacklist. The Government will no doubt launch a flurry of PR spin to demonise the leaker and portray itself as an innocent victim of circumstance when it happens, but one fact which will not be in dispute when it happens is that the Government was warned and carried on regardless. How much child exploitation is the Government willing to accept as "collateral damage" associated with this policy? More than zero? How much more?

Encouraging people who wish to bypass censorship to use encrypted VPNs carries a further unintended consequence, namely that the Australian Federal Police are unable to effectively execute Interception Warrants on encrypted traffic. Implementing censorship will drive criminals towards encryption by blocking non-encrypted methods of accessing the content they desire. I invite you to ponder the likely political effect of the revelation that Australian law enforcement was unable to gather evidence to convict a child abuser or a terrorist because the ALP's censorship system had inspired the offender to encrypt their Internet traffic.

Senator Conroy has invalidated the government's claim for a mandate by lying to the Australian public about the scope of the policy.

In December 2007, Senator Conroy was widely reported in the press as stating that "...anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service."

In October 2008, Darren Pauli from IDG/Computerworld obtained confirmation from the Minister's media spokesman that no opt-out will be available, "... the filters will be mandatory for all Australians."

As far as politicians' lies go, this one is breathtaking in its audacity. The Minister took the false impression that Australians will be able to (in his own words) "opt out of the service" to the last election, and allowed it to persist for almost an entire year even as the policy progressed to "live trials" with no opt-out provision. Then when the truth was exposed he launched personal attacks to denigrate critics as "extremist" "speculators".

Summary and Conclusion

Nearly a year has passed since Senator Conroy announced his plan, and none of the concerns described above have been addressed. The 21 million people comprising this policy's largest stakeholder group have not been consulted. We have not even been provided with the details we'd need to assess whether Senator Conroy's efforts to implement the policy are consistent with the Australian values, societal fabric, and child-rearing aims that the policy is purportedly designed to protect.

It disturbs me that Senator Conroy's response to these criticisms has been to label those who disagree with him as "speculators" and "extremists" and to compare them to child abusers. My criticisms are not "extreme", and I am not a child abuser. I am a voter, and I expect Senator Conroy to show some respect by answering my concerns without resorting to hysterical personal attacks. Senator Conroy's job is to convince the Australian public that his idea is worthy, but his habit of resorting to bluster, offensiveness and secrecy has severely undermined that role. Without Senator Conroy's detailed responses to these issues, the responsibility for any undesired "uninformed speculation" lies directly upon his shoulders.

I call upon you to:

1. respond to the policy concerns that I have outlined above; and
2. represent my interests in the Party Room to persuade Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd to change track by abandoning the "clean feed" proposal.

The general aims of the ALP's cyber-safety initiative are worth defending. In particular, budget allocations for education programs and investigative law enforcement are commendable. But the "clean feed" proposal is impossible to defend on technical, moral, financial and public policy grounds, and should be reviewed for suitability for inclusion in the Government's policy agenda before being allowed to proceed any further.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Newton

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On the 15th of December it was announced that a Mandatory Internet Filtering system would indeed be installed in ISPs around Australia and should be switched on within 12 months time. Supporters of the filtering cite that it will stop child pornography so it's a good thing. How wrong can you be?

"Fact, online child pornography is most often distributed by private email attachments to avoid detection. The internet filter will ONLY block out websites"

Child pornography which is distributed online, is most often by private email between pedophiles as apposed to putting it on a website which would open the creator of the website, and it's members up to all sorts of criminal prosecutions. Simply put, if the main distribution network for child pornography was websites, then there would be a lot more pedophiles in jail. If your sole reason for supporting the filter is stopping child porn, then you need to rethink your position.

So what are the facts about the list? Well, the filter has it's roots all the way back in 1999 when the then liberal government introduced laws which gave the Australian Communications and Media Authority; authority over internet content displayed in Australia. Under that law Content hosted in Australia and classified Classification restricted, or 18+ without an age verification system would be issued a take down notice. Such content hosted internationally would be added to a black list for use in voluntarily installed software on home PCs.

In August 2007 the Australian government through it's NetAlert department offered free, voluntary downloads of internet filtering software to be installed on home PCs. Late 2008 the scheme was shut down, with ACMA Senator Stephen Conroy citing it had not been successful with very few Australian's downloading the software. Clearly that should have woken him up to how Australians feel about filtering the internet, but instead it only inspired him into ISP level filtering instead.

"This very much seems to be a situation where Stephen Conroy feels he knows what's better for Australian's then they do for themselves. If you look up fascism in the dictionary, it will define it very much in that way."

During the elections which seen Labor form the federal government, they claimed the ISP level filtering would be an opt-out scheme. Of course an opt-in scheme would have been more desirable but at least in an opt-out scheme you of course have a way to not be filtered online and gain unrestricted access to information on the internet. But since forming government the policy has changed to one of mandatory filtering at the ISP level. This means every household, school, business, organisation or other entity connected to the internet will be under the power of the internet filter without any way to remove it. If you have an internet connection, the internet filter affects you.

So what is the big deal right? I mean surely they're only going to block out websites that are illegal... right? Wrong! All Restricted Classification content, X18+ content and R18+ content will be blocked. Speficially the AMCA criteria states;

• * Any online content that is classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board. This includes real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.
• * Content which is classified R 18+* and not subject to a restricted access system that prevents access by children. This includes depictions of simulated sexual activity, material containing strong, realistic violence and other material dealing with intense adult themes.

In other words, ALL pornography will be subject to the filter not just child pornography. As well anything which is of an adult nature, that being something you wouldn't want someone under the age of 16 to see. All added to the filter and blocked from view for EVERY Australian, regardless of their age. But this isn't subject just to porn, there is so much more on the list than porn but before I get into that, consider this.

On the 18th of March 2009, wikileaks leaked a copy of the black list onto the internet. A user of the popular internet consumer forum whirlpool posted a link to the black list on the site. The AMCA then issued a notice to Whirlpools hosting company Bulletproof Media that fines of 11,000AUD would apply per day, for every day the link remained on the site. The AMCA furthermore when to extraordinary lengths to forcibly have the black list removed from the wikileaks website. So, consider this, the black list comprises simply the URLs (or domains names) of websites which can not be viewed through the filter. If the filter is such a great thing, then why is it that they are so guarded against the general public viewing the list?

The answer? Because of what the list actually blocks out. From the leaked list it was found that a Brisbane dentist's website was blocked, as was a tuckshop vendors website and the website of a dog kennel. These websites clearly have nothing to do with anything even remotely illegal or 18+ in nature, but yet somehow they're on the list?

But it goes further. In may of 2009 the Australian press, citing wikileaks as it's source broke the news that Dr Philip Nitschke's online Peaceful Pill Handbook, which is a website dealing with euthanasia has been added to the list, as have a range of other websites dealing with the same topic. Apparently the right to a peaceful death for the terminally ill remains out of the scope of reasoning for the federal government even though it isn't illegal in several Australian states.

But still, EVEN MORE FILTERING! In June 2009 the AMCA and the Australian government confirmed that the internet filter will block downloadable games, flash-based web games and websites which sell physical copies of games (like ebay and amazon) that do not meet the MA15+ standard. If the AMCA don't think someone under 16 should see it, then neither should anyone over 18 apparently.

"This isn't about stopping cyber crime; it's about controlling information the public see"

Already many anti-censorship websites campaigning for the filter to not go through have been forcibly taken down by the government. Other sites containing content which is anti-government, or does not support the government has been either forcibly taken down, or added to the black list.

In short the filter classification system stops anyone from not only committing an illegal act online, but from discussing anything that is illegal online, be they for or against the action. It further stops any member of the Australian public, regardless of age viewing any content not suitable for children. It blocks out anything that is deemed to be racist, or that submits a view other than that shared by the censor. Under this classification system, websites like wikipedia (which is a free, user contributed online encyclopedia)have already been announced to be added to the black list; and social networking websites like facebook (due to their user groups, fan pages and applications) have only a limited amount of time before they too are added.

It seem the ONLY way this filter is going to be revoked is if the majority of the Australian public, publicly announce this distaste for the filter and their desire to axe the scheme. If even that didn't work, well then it would be clear that we indeed no longer live in a democracy society. As it stands the labor party are moving very steeply toward a fascist dictatorship not only on filtering but on many issues. It time Australia, that we cut the government back down to size, before we end up in a situation where we suffer from tunnel vision due to lack of information and millions of Australian jobs are lost.

Links;

Wikipedia Article
Electronic Frontiers Australia
No Clean Feed
Labors plan for cyber safety (pdf)
USA Today article
Sydney Morning Herald article (March 19)
Sydney Morning Herald Article (December 15)
ABC News Article

Ok so this is more a pet peeve of mine that has boiled over into a blog post rather than actual news. But seriously what is up with Woolworths and not training their check-out chicks how to pack their plastic bags correctly?

If you're not going to train them how to pack a bag right, then please for heavens sake don't get them to pack it at all. The amount of times I've had to re-pack my grocery bags after these morons pack the bags incorrectly is enough to drive me insane.

I'm not saying all woolworths check-out people are morons, or indeed that they all pack bags wrong, but the over whelming majority of them; at the THREE (3) stores local to me at least; couldn't pack groceries if their lives depended on it. Heavy things put in with things that go squish, meat packed with vegetables, and my all suffering over packed bags.

The most common way they over pack bags is by placing far to many soft drink bottles in a single bag. Woolworths please, please, PLEASE, tell your workers that plastic grocery bags are only rated to hold 3KG of weight. A bottle of soft drink weighs a little over (like a few grams) 1Kg per litre. So for example a standard 1.25L bottle of softdrink weighs around the same in Kg. 2L of drink is slightly over 2Kg.

So if you stick 2, 2L bottles in a single grocery bag that is only rated to carry 3Kg guess what happens? THE BAG BREAKS YOU INCOMPETENT OAF! Which means my groceries fall on the ground!

And for christ sake, WOOLWORTHS TEACH THEM HYGIENE! If you pack meat with vegetables then there is a pretty good chance you're going to give people gastro. THINK!

Please bring on RFID already because then I don't have to deal with this annoyance. In the mean time I think I might write a letter of complaint to Woolworths, because I'm tired of their incompetence.

As the year draws to a close we start to reflect on what that year has brought; and one can't reflect on such things without realising a considerable amount of the individuals privacy has been lost. So the question draws, will history hold 2009 as the year privacy was lost?

Facebook and Twitter and of course the Google machine have been the big violators of our privacy in 2009, gathering wads of data on us. This year Facebook made no less than 4 changes to their privacy policy, each one inching just that much more of your privacy away. As a result not only is everything you place on facebook up for documentation and collation with them, but so their privacy policy states, so is every other website you visit including how you interact with every site you visit.

Facebook also teamed up with Microsoft to place facebook on the Xbox 360, automatically updating your facebook status with what games, movies and music your using, as well as various other detailed information about them. Of course once the data is on facebook they file it away to make just that much more of an accurate picture of you. The world went twitter mad in 2009 as well, updating each other with their smallest, most tedious of actions. twitter itself; with a very facebook like privacy policy violated our privacy collating all the data we unwittingly delivered to them.

But it doesn't stop there, facebook took our twitter content and got us to stream it directly from twitter to them where the data could become facebooks to gather as well. And all the while the google machine gobbled up data from facebook, twitter and every other corner of the internet. Google's privacy policy shifted this year to allow for the collection of even more data. Your name, age, date of birth, the school you went to, your medical records, your likes and dislikes, your ex's, school grades, the games, movies and music you involve yourself with, your marital status, your credit rating, how much money you make, how much you paid for your house and how you paid for it...it's all their, publically viewable through google if you only know what to search for.

But where facebook collate each piece of our data as their policy allows for more collection, google play a more shifty game. For google the game plan is to creep through gathering more and more data, but to wait until the time is write to change the policy on collating the data.

But make no mistake, the time WILL come, after all Google are a targeted ads company, gathering data about you and collating it is what their business model is made up of. And with new services like Google's Public DNS and comments from Googles CEO Eric Schmidt on CNBC like

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

the stage is certainly set for a future where google know and collate EVERYTHING you do online. And what's more, knowing google; it will all most likely become publically available as well. The thought becomes even scarier when you consider that more and more devices are moving online.

The future see's devices like the Television and Radio, the telephone, the washer/drier and even the fridge all moving online. Even the video game console seems set to be replaced by a Set Top Box to link into a virtual unit. In this future one can expect your weekly shopping list, your phone calls and even how often you wash your clothes and how much water you use to added to the list of google indexed and publically available content. A wise man once said, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The big question now becomes, where do we go from here? Knowing what has happened to privacy through 2009 do we allow our privacy to further unravel or do we steal it back from the fingers of sleazy two faced advertising corps, back into our own control?

It seems The Twilight Saga is the new harry potter, in that the whole world seems to be mad for it. New Moon is officially the highest grossing box office release for it's first opening day, taking in 72 MILLION dollars in the US alone. Think about that for a moment, and consider the extra tens of millions made from other countries around the world. This is a film that in it's first day recouped it's production budget. Everything from that point on is profit!

But the thing I'm not understanding is simply why it's so popular. I just don't see what is so interesting about the story line which for me alienates the very vampire legend itself. You see vampires aren't loving caring people, they can't fall in love, they have no sole. They won't rescue you. The folklore of the vampire is simple, they're soulless beasts whom apparently made a pact with the devil in order to rise from their grave. They are the undead. In the context any romantic notions of them are sorta creepy.

I mean seriously, who falls in love with what is essentially a corpse that sucks blood to stay alive? That's more than sorta gross don't you think? I mean what's next? Zombies that fall in love? Or will it be werewolves? Or the creature from the black lagoon? I've seen a LOT of drivel come out of hollywood, and these Twilight movies are right up there with the worst of them.

But in the theme of things, lets explore the vampire legend a little better. As most people know folklore, myths and legends usually have some truth to them, somewhere, no matter how abstract. This is indeed the case for the vampire legend. There are 2 schools of thought on this one, depending on where you come from. The first of which comes from what is now Slovakia and is where we get the Dracula legend.

In 1611 there was a countess by the name of Elizabeth Bathory; she was one of the highest aristocrats of the time and thus had extraordinary power. She not only had people from the local village abducted, but she killed them and drank their blood. No one knows exactly why she did this, but the best respected theory is for it's iron content. Elizabeth Bathory was obsessed with beauty and more over youth. Having a high iron diet will slow the viable aging process, smoothing skin and removing wrinkles.

The second origin for the forklore has to do with what is actually a normal occurrence of death. When a body dies, it starts to lose moisture as a result the skin shrinks back making it seem as though finger nails and hair continue to grow. The gums recede making the canines more prominent as if the person has grown fangs. The hair also starts to lose its colour. Now try to view this from the point of view of a superstitious, highly religious and christian society. One for whom the burial ceremony is quite quick, where a corpse is in the ground within a day or so.

Not enough time to view these traits on a regular basis. But should there be a hold up with the burial for some reason these quite normal characteristics of a corpse can be seen. For such a community it is easy to see how they would mistake the corpse for being alive. Now couple this occurrence with another unrelated one. That of vampire bats. Vampire bats, will feed on humans while they sleep. The experience is painless as the bat's saliva contains a natural anesthetic.

For an already paranoid, superstitious and devoutly religious community linking these to events together must have seemed natural. And so the legend of the vampire was born. A being which made a pact with the devil to cheat death. A being which is dead, but must feed on blood to survive, and must do so by night. And a being capable of turning into a bat. And there you have it, over time the legend of course changed and morphed into something else... new bits where added and eventually we got to a point where we have silly movies and books like those in the twilight series.

I know humanity loves to think of themselves as these higher beings that are so entirely over complicated and all, but seriously that isn't the truth. Sex makes the world go round. Sure great, humans can make art, build rockets and cheat death through medicine. But without sex, it's all really kinda pointless.

You exist because of sex, and in your life, while you probably won't notice it, sex will be your biggest driving force. Think about it, why do men want high paying jobs? Sex. Why do people want to be famous? Sex. What's the most popular use for the internet? Sex; or more over sex related activities. In fact, we spend the bulk of our lives trying to find and then keep a mate. Why? Sex.

So it honestly shocks me to the core that so many people deny their partners sex, put sex off and so forth; then can't understand where things went pear shaped in their relationship. Lets think about this logically here for a moment, how does a "romantic relationship" differ from an ordinary friendship? Sex. So without the presence of sex how does it continue to be a "romantic relationship" ?

Fact of the matter is from sex our brains are flooded with a few different chemicals, which in turn cause us to feel more "in love" with the person, to be more tolerant of their behavior and to be more willing to go out of our way to help that person. Sex relaxs our bodies and decreases the chances of heart attack or stroke. 20 minutes of sex is the same as an hour of high energy exercise in the gym, so it's great for keeping us fit and healthy.

Now, without sex those chemicals don't flood the brain. So over time those annoying little habits your partner has can break the relationship. Couples who have a poor, or no sex life fight in a more hurtful and long lasting way. This is why when you first met your partner and you were having sex like rabbits they seemed great but now you can barely stand to stay in the same room as them.

So what about before you had sex you ask? Anticipation is a beautiful thing. The idea of having sex with someone is a powerful motivator and causes amounts of the same chemicals to be released into the brain. In short, you get almost the same effects of having sex (in brain chemistry) without actually having it yet. But of course this only happens if (1) It's someone you actually want to have sex with and (2) see there being a high chance of that action coming about.

So, with keeping a relationship relatively happy, generally coming down to how much sex you get, and more over the perceived readiness there of, why is it that after a certain period of time most people forget to have it? Suddenly things you were doing while you were having loads of sex in the beginning, become a reason not to have sex anymore. It's the biggest mistake. When you're in a relationship GOOD sex should be up their on your priorities list, along side eating and breathing. That is of course assuming you don't want the relationship to end. But I mean if the case is that you do want it to end, then isn't it far better for you both to just end it, instead of subjecting yourselves to the slow painful death?

Yes, sex makes the world go around. So why do so many people forget it?

The Australian Labor party announced the terms of their new proposed CPRS, which looks set to be implemented as early as this week. Labor of course are all hearts and smiles about the package, selling it as if it's the best thing since sliced bread. The greens however aren't so pleased. Senator bob brown has emailed me twice in as many days about the scheme and has revealed the scheme will see another $5.8 BILLION of tax payer money going to privately owned companies.

That basically means we're paying these companies money just to run their business in accordance with laws being set in place. To me, this doesn't seem very fair, or in accordance with the ideas of the capitalist society we live in. An economy built on debt and on robbing other vital projects of funding, is an economy destine for collapse. As I've said before, the only real reason we had any consernable dip in our economy during the "global financial crisis" is because of the scare tactics the government deployed. It's highlighted by just how quickly the economy has bounced back.

Now after placing us in such significant debt, the government is asking us now to take our tax dollars and give them to privately run companies. This is money that should have gone towards other government funded programs OR to paying off their ridiculous debt. Meanwhile, while these massive polluters in industry with their millions and even billions of dollars in profits get a tax payer hand out, what about the Average Australian?

Well the Labor website has said:

Voluntary Action: The Government will ensure the CPRS takes into account voluntary action by households. Voluntary action by households will now allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 emissions reduction target. In addition, the CPRS will be amended to ensure that all existing and future purchases of GreenPower will be counted, and allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 national targets.

So the current subsidy scheme will now let you buy solar panels and junk like that beyond what is needed to meet your 2020 targets. Great, so the average aussie who is cashed up and wants to go beyond their legal requirements will have some subsidy to their purchases. Meanwhile private companies like those in the coal industry, get everything paid for by tax payer money. Nice.

And why is it the coal industry is even in there? Surely the government realise here that the coal industry, has to die in order for us to actually affect climate change.

But the big kicker? We're paying 1.1 BILLION dollars of tax payer money towards ELECTRICITY bills for these private companies. Seriously, not only do we pay for their shiny new stuff that they'll over charge us to use, but we're paying their electricity bills as well. Remind me, how are these private companies still if everything is publicly funded?

If they're going to introduce funding for these companies, then it should be solely on a LOAN basis! I as a tax payer expect that my money will be used wisely in the best interests of the nation. If I'm going to have to prop up an old world company trying to change for the new, then I expect a return on my investment as should all Australians.

Links

Labors webpage on the CPRS
Detailed changes to the CPRS (PDF)

The Rudd government is one step closer to realising their dream of having an CPRS in place before going to Copenhagen next year. The government announced changes to their proposed CPRS today after talks with the Coalition. While some Liberal front benchers still don't back the CPRS, the wider Coalition now seems too which means it is likely to be voted through when it is next introduced to parliament.

The government promises the new changes should mean individual Australian's who volunteer to cut their carbon use will "be rewarded". It furthermore goes on to promise Industry will be compensated. Hold on a moment, what? More tax payer money promised to be forward to privately owned companies? I get they're trying to protect jobs here, but seriously you're either going to do something about climate change (which means massive lay offs in certain industries, or you're not going to do anything which is basically what this CPRS does).

The big thing I can't get my head around is what the labor parties rush to have an CPRS through is. What is so important about having one in place before Copenhagen? Seriously, does Kevin Rudd think the rest of the world leaders will see it and go, oh yeah Ruddy you're awesome?

Passing an CPRS through before Copenhagen is an idiotic move. No other developed country is doing this, so why is Australia rushing? Climate change can not be fixed by one (1) nations actions. Australia having even the most stringent of CPRS policies in place won't really have very much of a lot of an effect on climate change, unless all the other nations follow suite. That is the whole point of the Copenhagen conference, to discuss what we as a planet will do to stop climate change. And here Kevin Rudd goes rushing his CPRS through before Copenhagen. This could be very easily seen as arrogance on Australia's behalf viewed from the world stage.

We need to discuss the issues as a planet and come up with a global decision. Anything less than that is simply wasting time and money. I mean lCPRS think about this, we get the CPRS in place, industry start spending money, tax payer money starts following into these privately owned companies. Then Copenhagen comes and goes and we find the rest of the world is doing something else. Oh great one there Kevin Rudd, now industry will have to pay even more money to change over yet again, even MORE tax payer money will pour into these companies and you'll get even more job losses.

Yeah, this sounds like a seriously terrible idea to me

Today facebook released the following statement in relation to their new privacy policy which I highlighted in a previous post.

On Nov. 5, we wrapped up a week-long notice and comment period for a proposed revision to our privacy policy. This was a continuation of our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. The goals of the revised policy were to make it more accessible and easier to understand.

We've spent the last week reviewing each and every one of your comments. While a lot of people participated, the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this — and the fact that many of the comments were positive — we've decided to adopt the revised policy. We'll be posting it in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish soon.

In the coming weeks and months, we plan to build on the progress we've already made in making the document more accessible by also adding definitions of key terms, screen shots of important pages and informational "learn more" videos. We think these visual resources will make it even easier to understand how privacy works on Facebook.

We received excellent feedback from many of you over the course of the week, and the number of fans for the Facebook Site Governance Page more than doubled. Overall, you supported the proposed changes. For example:

* Most of you liked that we removed more complicated technical and legal terms and replaced them with simpler language that everyone can understand.

* You preferred the structure of the new document, which provides key points at the beginning and easy links to jump to the different sections.

* A few of you asked for a redline version so you could compare the proposed revision to our current policy and see exactly what's changed. We weren't able to provide one this time because the policy was completely rewritten, but we think it's a great idea and are committed to doing it for future proposed changes to our governing documents.

As always, thanks for taking part in this important process. We're glad to have so many interested and engaged people using Facebook. Stay tuned for future updates by becoming a fan of the Facebook Site Governance Page.

Now it seems to me that given the majority of facebook users have NO CLUE the facebook site governance page exists; Let alone that they have to fan it in order to see announcements about how facebook will deal with their private information in the future, that this is NOT an open and transparent company. It is instead a company whom is trying to give a half arsed impression of being open and transparent, without actually needing to be open and transparent.

I tell you what, the majority of comments to their proposals where "give us a redline version". They weren't positive, they weren't negative they were impartial comments because they wanted a redline version to highlight the changes. Rewriting the document is no reason as to why a redline version can't be provided, that's a poor excuse if any. And 7000 people needed to vote? What? When are they EVER going to get 7000 people commenting on an announcement? Especially when only like 5%, that's right 5% of facebook users actually know there was an announcement in the first place. What happens to the voice of the other 95% of users? Where does their chance to vote come into play?

Fact of the matter is, regardless of how many people commented or what they had to say; facebook would have brought about the changes. They need those changes or all their new features they have lined up and have spent money on developing will go down the tube. They need those changes to further support business partnerships and link ups like the new Xbox Live & Facebook thing they have going. It's certainly no coincidence that Facebook was launched on Xbox Live the same day as the new privacy policy officially came into effect.

And seriously lets think about this Xbox Live/Facebook partnership. What does the user actually get from it? You can't navigate your facebook page like you can on your computer, you can't play your apps and game or visit peoples profiles. All you can do is look at friends photo's and change your status automatically depending on what you do on your Xbox. Lets think about it for a moment, do you really want your friends knowing what movie you're watching and when? Or how long you've been playing a game for, or what Achievement you just won in a game or whatever music you're listening to? Do you really want that automatically streamed to your facebook account?

And more over, do you really want that information falling into Facebook's hands with their privacy policy? A privacy policy which leaks your information to 3rd parties without consequence to facebook. A privacy policy which collates your data with you as a person and not annonymously and then uses that information to give to 3rd Party partner companies and advertisers? Do you seriously want them to know your every move?

What's next? The TV? Downloading information about what we watch on TV, for how long and when? Or the Fridge? What it's stocked with and how often we restock it? OR will facebook simply get inside the RFID network and log everything we own and how often we use it? Will that information become a matter of public record too? Facebook represents an advertisers dream world, where by WE the users ARE the PRODUCTS that facebook sell. They collate non-anonymous data on us in an ever growing way and I for one find it scary as hell.

In Australia recently there is a lot of talk once again about "boat people"; and in particular a vessel holding 163 of such people coming from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan people on the boat are claiming asylum and want to come to Australia, however they're docked in Indonesia. But for some reason there are a LOT of people whom are giving the government a tough time over this issue and whom think we should let them come here.

Most advocates for letting these people come to Australia cite that there is only 163 and thus use the argument that this small number makes it ok to let them in. We have reporters hyping up the issue and making statements like "the government are probably breaking international laws". Did you catch it? The word probably? The existence of that single word invalidates the entire sentence. Seriously, do you think these stations lack the ability to research these things?

Of course not, they have teams of people whose job it is to look up such things, so the use of the word "probably" turns the sentence from a fact, into an opinion; at the same time as demonstrating it has no scrap of truth to it. It's far better for news ratings to prove the government is definitely breaking an international law, than it is to say "probably". They know it's a lie, its there because it makes you feel something.

The international organisation UNHCR states on their website there are as of June 2009 42 million displaced people in the world. Of those people 26 million are simply displaced inside their own country, but 16 million are claiming refugee status. 16 million! That's a damn sight more than 163. I wonder how all the proponents of letting in "boat people" would feel if they woke up tomorrow with boats containing all 16 million of these people were headed toward Australia? I wonder how they'd feel if the flood gates were opened and all the worlds displaced flooded in. Forget the fact it'd be near impossible to find work in such a situation, and start thinking about how water and food resources would hold up.

Yes, I agree that some of these people on the boats come from countries were they can't queue for an asylum visa. But that is reason to fix the way people apply for asylum visa's, not reason to allow in queue jumpers. The government have taken this stance because it's the right stance to take. We do NOT want to show a message to all the displaced people of the world that Australia will let them in. We simply can't support them.

As it is we have far to many Indians coming into Australia, we certainly don't need a bunch more Sri Lankans which are almost the same thing. Sure it's sad that children are displaced and have been through a lot, but heck there are plenty of displaced Children right here in Australia in the form of the homeless. What about these AUSTRALIAN children? Does their pain not matter to you? Worry about them before you worry about people displaced in another country.

We aren't the wealthy country some people seem to think we are, near 50% of Australians are living under what the international community defines as the poverty line. If you look at just the financial data for Australia and nothing else, you'd have to classify Australia as a third world nation.

Our water supplies are already failing. Our electricity supplies are near breaking point and electricity providers are getting ready for government imposed power rationing. Heck, some places in Australia already have power rationing. Our public transport systems already can't support the small percentage of the community who use them. Our road infrastructure already is having trouble supporting the number of drivers on the road. And the price of food is already through the roof. Tell me, under those circumstances, how on earth are we meant to be letting in an ever increasing number of immigrants? Of refugees?

Think about this, if the government not letting in "boat people" was such an international law breaker, then why does every other western country do the same thing? The Americians SHOOT Mexicans who jump the border ON SITE! No trial, no jail, no deportation process, you jump the border, you die. Australia is an island nation, there is no way for people to jump out borders other than by boat! This is about protecting our life style, about protecting the nations interests and more over about protecting Australians.

This is about having order and control. WE should decide who comes in our country and who doesn't. WE should decide the terms. Otherwise what is stopping people coming and going from Australia as they please? What would stop criminals and terrorists from entering our country and leaving after they'd achieved their objectives? We'd be in chaos! So the question is, do you really want that?

links;

Sri Lanka Tourism
UNHCR article
Sri Lanka Tourism Portal

When did love become a commodity; exploitable for entertainment and profit? When did it become ok to exploit someone else's feelings in order to win a competition and some cash? And honestly, what sort of message are we sending our children by allowing such shows to be broadcast?

I'm not some hopeless romantic who is going to talk about true love and there being only 1 person for each of us. Truth is that isn't how love works. Indeed we are capable of loving anyone, if only we allow yourselves. But that doesn't make it right to exploit peoples feelings in order to make cheap popular television. In fact it is this point that makes it less condonable to exploit such emotion; for the basis of the show is to stick a bunch of people together in a house for so many weeks were by they fight for the love and affection of the bachelor or the bachelorette.

This very situation, of going in expecting to fall in love, of being in situations which open one up to falling in love, these are all designed to fit around the human psyche in such a way as to induce in every individual whom participates in the competition, strong feelings of love and affection. Sure a competitors pain and anguish ends for you the moment they leave the competition so you only get to witness a very small amount of it; but for the individuals whom participate the pain will surely last long passed the season finale.

We the viewer a cradled away from the heartache these shows produce, because lets face it, if you knew how much pain this show caused people would you really still watch it? And more over, would people enter to be in the next season? Shows like this are dangerous, because they show us, and especially our children, that it is ok to date multiple people at once. That it is ok to hurt people, and that you shouldn't feel bad or sorry for doing so. It removes empathy and sympathy from our social conscious.

So where will it stop? Were will we draw the line in reality TV? At what point will we picket the networks for airing their "reality" rubbish? Just because it has the word real in the title, doesn't make it so. Think about it, when was the last time you got locked up in a multi-million dollar mansion with 25 hot guys or girls all competing to be with you? When did you last get to go on loads of awesome out of this world dates? If these people met under normal circumstances, the likelihood of them feeling anything for each other isn't incredibly high. For an animal that is already completely insane, does humanity need to drift further down the rabbit path by drifting into a bigger fantasy about what love show be like?

I've started playing a game called Yoville on facebook which is basically Flash based IRC with avatars. I've noticed when people argue on there someone always ends up calling the other person "gay" or "homo", like if it's an insult.

Call me ignorant if you like, but I just don't see how being homosexual could be considered an insult, let alone being called it. I fail to see how ones sexually can be interpreted in an insulting manner. Lord knows statistically speaking at least half of your friendship group are into some pretty freaky stuff in the "bedroom".

Everything from feet fetishes, to BDSM and even waterplay. Yep, you're friends, perhaps even you are into all sorts of things. Can I then call you a Waterplay and use that as an insult when you piss me off? Of course not, know why? Because it's something you do in private, engaged by 2 consenting adults. Same goes for being gay.

Sure being gay means you can't have kids, but on a planet already over populated by humans, is that really such a bad thing? Either way it's not something one should be using as an insult. Personally I'd find being called a smoker or obese more offensive, I mean those are things which are truly bad things, which you have a choice and control over. Being gay is just about who you find attractive, wow, big deal.

Why do people get so afraid of people who are homosexual? I don't get it. They're no different. I reckon people should get a clue, because I say being Gay is A-ok!

So often we preach of free society, so much so we are willing to send our young men and women off to protect it. But in a country where democracy has mutated into the beginnings of dictatorship what freedoms do we truly have left?

Our system of government is meant to function in a way where a politician is merely a representative of their electorate, no different then any other member of the public. It is designed this way because it's far easier to have 1 person demonstrate the general will of their electorate then it is to have everyone in the electorate demonstrate it.

To do this a politician is meant to be a part of the community able to understand what the majority of that community wants and how they feel on issues. They are then meant to take that will and represent it in parliament, doing their best to achieve said will. This is democracy, how it is meant to run. Democracy isn't just the choice for who to vote for, it is a set of rules on how they will operate once voted in.

What we get today is NOT democracy. Sure we get to vote, but what happens after we vote? Are our voices heard? Is the general will of the people followed? People talk so much now days about politicians being "out of touch" and brush it to the side as if it is just normal. But the mere fact they are "out of touch" is a demonstration of how little democracy is actually left.

Another is the fact that hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars are spent on advertising to sell us new schemes, laws, taxes or anything else the government want to do. In a democratic society these things shouldn't need to be sold to the public, because they should already be the will of the public. If you have to sell something to us, then it shouldn't be happening in the first place.

We but face facts, we are not a democratic and free society anymore. We are a society where a government tells us what we can and can not do. We are a society where our wills are not heard nor followed. We are a society where our freedoms and privacy are lost, more and more daily. None of this is down to a terrorist in a far off land, it is due to greedy, power hungry people in our own country. And it is a violation of the constitution by which this country is governed. Think about it...

Taxes; they're meant to go to keeping this country running. They're meant to go into Hospitals and Schools, into Roads and essential services. They're meant to go into a fair, equal and reasonable welfare system. But they don't. TJandSarah.com has received insider knowledge of Australia's social welfare system and how through it, you're paying to keep drug addicts in habit.

Centrelink has many payments which it offers, which with different rules. None of which however is more cooshy then the Disability pension which see's recipiants not required to look for work, but still earning quite a reasonable and livable sum of money. It is a payment which is meant to be for people who have a disability which prevents them from holding down employment.

TJandSarah.com have been advised by a source at centrelink that this payment is NOT living upto what it is meant to be. We were advised of a case involving a man who had lost one of his arms and had come into centrelink to claim the disability pension. You would think this would be easy for him wouldn't you? But his claim was denied because he still has one arm which apparently makes him capable of work.

So what does this all have to do with drug addicts you ask? Well while people who have lost limbs are denied the pension, TJandSarah.com have been told by a senior Centrelink offical, that Drug Addicts regularly qualify for the payment. Apparently chosing to drink excessively, shoot up or otherwise take drugs qualifies you as a disabled person under Centrelinks definition.

A payment, whose funds are gathered from our taxes, and was meant to support those in our society phsyically incapable of doing so themselves is being rorted by drug addicts the nation over. While you go to work day in, day out these addicts are able to live it up on money collected by the government from YOUR tax dollars! They then use this money to continue thier lifestyle of addiction, and even to purchase their substance of choice!

Furthermore, by being under this payment there is no incentive for them to ever stop their addiction. There are no requirements to look for work, no requirements to seek rehab, no requirements to report in at all. Drug addicts are getting a free ride, and we the tax payers of Australia are funding it.

If we want to truly battle the drug problem then how can we honestly enable these people in their addiction? Why would anyone ever stop using if they get such a sweet ride because of it? If anything the system in it's current state encourages addicts to remain that way, as if they were to ever clean themselves up, they would lose their payment.

We need urgent welfare reform to (1) disqualify any addict from receiving the disability pension (2) require all persons whom have addictions to not only seek employment but to undergone a mandatory drug rehab program and (3) make the disability pension easier for persons who genuinely have a disability to access and claim.

Many years ago we were promised 100mbps wireless internet in the form of the 802.16e (WiMax) standard. Unfortunately only select countries ever had this promise fulfilled, for the rest of us, wireless internet has been confined mostly, to the 3G networks of cellphone providers.

With 3G HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) and 3G EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) we seen speeds of up to 3.5mbps and 7.2mbps respectively. This was great for most web applications, but no good for streaming high speed, High Definition video on the go, or for multiapping across the web and uploading/downloading large files.

Now there is a new kid coming to the block and he's about to kick 3Gs ass. I predict 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) will be the talk of late 2010 and into 2011. With promised theoretical download speeds of up to 160mbps it'll easily out do your home fibre optic connection. It's important to note also, this speed is considered stable traveling at up to 120km/h

Expect 4G to be released on mobile handsets and USB dongle modems to start with. But as this technology takes hold and blankets an evermore larger area expect other 4G enabled devices to be released. With a stable, super fast internet connection, while traveling at high speeds, there is no reason why internet radios, or car radios with internet radio capabilities can't be released. Nor is there a reason why the same can't be said for IPTV.

With faster mediums like 4G coming into play I can see no reason why eventually handset manufactures won't start to favour VOIP over traditional telephony signal mediums. But that again is only on the assumption we have a united developed world uptake of 4G.

With that said, such data through-put rates, in a mobile setting has to be enticing to ISPs and Mobile Carriers alike, and assuming they are able to get hold of the technology through a suitable reseller deal with a Mobile Carrier, I'm sure we'll see more ISPs entering the mobile internet and mobile phone markets. Yep LTE are the 3 little letters you need to remember, they're the next mobile future and could, if implemented right, spell good things for us all.

Links;

Wikipedia
iTWire Article
Nortel LTE site
Gigaom post

I've been getting called from the Child Support Agency lately harassing me, not to pay child support, but to collect it. Seems they feel now that bro lives with me, I should collect child support. Not that I even know how they found out he lives with me, I certainly didn't tell them and I can't see Chelsea doing that. It's ridiculous that an agency like the CSA can find out information about you like that, they're responsible for collecting Child Support, not hunting down escaped criminals.

The thing they don't seem to understand is that I'm not interested in collecting Child Support, it's an idiotic system. I don't need someone who doesn't live with me, who isn't my partner, and realistically isn't a part of my life, providing me a portion of their income. I mean lets face it, that's how this system works. It's unfair, unwarranted and completely foolish.

In reality separated families fall into one of 3 categories. In Category 1; both parents share care of the child 50/50, in this case how can you decide who should pay child support? Whoever earns more? Being penalised because you happen to have a better paying job is just ludicrous.

In Category 2, the child lives with one parent and visits the other; honestly if this is the case shouldn't the visiting parent save their money for when they actually see the child(ren)? Or is the idea to give all your money to the other parent so you have none when the child(ren) visit and thus visitation sucks? My view is simple, if you can not provide for the child, sufficiently in a financial manner WITHOUT child(ren) support, then honestly, what business do you have, having the child(ren) residing with you?

When you agree to have the child live with you, you take on the financial responsibility that carries with it. You shouldn't be looking to your ex to provide for you, that's just silly. If you can't handle it on your own, perhaps you should consider joining category 1 instead, then the load gets shared in a reasonable manner.

Category 3 families have the child(ren) reside with one parent, and the other parent not see the child(ren). Honestly, in this case why on earth should someone pay child support for a child they don't even get to see? Sure there are some people who don't want to see their child(ren) but those are the minority of this category. The vast majority have no contact with their child(ren) forced upon them by the other party.

The final insult being that you have to pay part of your income to someone who denies you the ability to see your own flesh and blood. What makes the situation worse is there is often no legal recourse, no way to fix the matter. Parents who deny their child access to their other parent have no business being parents in the first place, but it is made all the more terrible if they go for child support too. You have to be pretty low to be like that. It highlights a character flaw which means the money given in child support wouldn't be spent on the child(ren) anyway.

At the end of the day, child support isn't about children. It's a government sanctioned way for greedy, selfish and angry people to get back at their ex. If it where about children then the money would pool in an account for which the CSA is the trustee. Receipts would have to be produced to the CSA for all monies used from child support, to prove it's being used for the child(ren). But it isn't that way at all. It goes from the CSA straight to the other parents bank account, where they can use it however and whenever they feel like it, regardless if it's to buy something for the child(ren) or to buy themselves something nice and shiny. It's a system plagued with flaws, and I for one would much rather do away with it all together.

Links;

Child Support Agency

Founder of the "Animal Liberation Movement" in Australia, Christine Townend would have us all eating salad instead of Meat. Veggies instead of eggs. Her complaint is that animals, bred for industrial farming are kept in appalling conditions. And while most of us can agree with that, her solutions are simply unreasonable.

Sure it'd be nice if these animals had better conditions, but lets face it, at the end of the day they're being bred to die. Do you really think it matters too much if the animal is sad at the time? In an interview on talking heads this evening, she admitted that in the 15 years she's been involved with the "Animal Liberation Movement" they haven't managed to change much of a lot. She blames this on heartless people, and evil big industry.

But did she and her do gooder friends ever stop to think that this just might be the price paid in full, for feeding the over populated abundance of humanity? I mean sure, it's not for the squeamish, but then nor is hunting. I'm not saying it's right, only that it is necessary.

She feels we can all just live on plants, as do a bunch of do gooder freaks. But what they fail to realise in the science behind it. It takes 14.2 Kilograms of broccoli to give you the same amount of iron as a 250 gram steak. Claims that it's better for the environment to just eat plants are just insane. To feed the population with just plants we'd have to multiply our agricultural area by a factor of at least 500%. The use of pesticides would have to increase. It's completely unsustainable.

Not to mention the fundamental flaw in the argument that it's "cruel to kill living creatures thus we should leave other animals alone and just eat plants". Did these do gooders stop to think for a moment before they started waving their banners and chanting their bullshit? Of course not, they're do gooders, on their emotional driven band wagon. Plants are living creatures too.

Creatures whom are incapable of running away from a predator, unlike say a cow whom is not only capable of running away, but also of giving a mighty good kick to the head (which can kill a human). Should we ignore the suffering of one type of creature simply because it's incapable of making sound?

It's a flawed argument just like all the rest of this hippie nonsense. Red meat fuels our brains, it is what kick started the flames of evolution. Red meat fuels the mind and the body, it's protein aides in the repair of damaged cells and production of new cells. We need meat, especially red meat.

But Christine Townend hasn't stopped there. No now she's gone to live in India and is forcing them to change their habit. She has in-sighted several laws in regards to the keeping, use and work of elephants. These are animals which have a large tie to their religion and fundamental culture, and here Christine Townend thinks she can fly in from Australia and change it all. No, no, you can't use that saddle on the elephant that has been used for thousands of years, the elephant might be uncomfortable.

No, no, you can't use the elephant for work during summer, even though the use of elephants in such conditions is something that helped build India in the first place, the elephant might get to hot. Wake up you hippie freaks! Stop trying to change the world, when you have no right to do so. Humanity has no special purpose. Humanity aren't the guardians of jack shit. Humans are simply animals trying to carve out their own existence. It's a dog eat dog existence people... get used to it because mother nature isn't the forgiving, second chances type.

In a move that mimics the notorious Nigerian spam emails which claim you have won a large sum of money, scammers have now turned to SMS. The ACCC has issued a warning to all Australians about the scam SMS's which claim you have won 3rd prize in a lucky door prize at a press conference at Melbourne's Rialto Tower. Recipients of the scam SMS's are given what seems to be a Melbourne based phone number, but is actually routed overseas.

For those whom go as far as calling the number to 'claim' their 'prize', the ACCC has advised that the scammers have been asking for personal information such as full name, address, date of birth, drivers license number and bank details. These details can then be used as part of a larger identity theft scam later.

According to the ACCC the scammers are requesting people pay $2000 to the scammers which they claim is 20% of the "winnings tax" in Macao. Reportedly once the scammers have your details they become quite insistent that you pay them the $2000, allegedly calling often demanding the money be paid.

Two examples of the Scam emails have been provided by the ACCC which state;

Last notice: Your mobile phone No. has won the 3rd prize in our activity, the cert No.:L6501, please contact our company asap, and your right will be cancel if it overdue or without cert No.,GSCI hotline:03-9001593

Last Notice: Your mobile No. has won 3rd prize in our activities with cert No.J4192,pls contact us ASAP, or else your award will be cancel. GSCI company:03-90105706

Given the closeness in tact of the scam to the Nigerian email scams I am truly surprised anyone has been caught up in this scam. It really throws me that someone can get a text message like the ones above, which have obvious short hand and grammatical errors in them and yet still reply to it? But the thing that really gets me is how anyone can think they won 3rd prize in the lucky door prize at a fictional press conference they never attended.

Indeed unless they actually work for the press, and thus attend press conferences, why would you think for a moment you'd won anything? It's really easy to see these are a scam, one the ACCC says originates in China. Perhaps we should all use a little more common sense when it comes to things of this nature. For those of us whom refuse to use common sense and involve themselves in obvious scams, it is perhaps their own fault.

Links;

ACCC's warning

Australia's annual water report card has warned water prices will rise in all of Australia's capital cities over the next 5 years. This comes as a result of strategy change for civil water from dams to waste water systems and desalination plants.

In dams we had a relatively cheap source of water, fed by rain; the power required was minimal compared with these newer sources. Desalination plants have been traditionally expensive to run, and not a lot has changed now. This is due to the enormous amounts of energy required to strip sodium from sea water.

As we find ourselves in a position where electricity prices are rising, and will consider to do so dramatically over the next decade, we can expect water prices to follow. We have set ourselves into this position through a society of pollution and ignorance toward the environment, and not much has changed.

As climate change continues to have an effect on our country, and thus our water supply we can further expect prices to rise. And in the rising price of water we can of course expect a flow on effect into all products which require water. Yep, your grocery bill just got higher...

Links;

ABC News story

Live in another country? Sick of it and want a change? Perhaps you're being persecuted, or maybe your country just sucks. Think living in Australia would be great? Awesome, no need to fill in those pesky immigration forms to get permanent residency buy your way in! Yes dear reader there is a back door into Australia and it is the source of the Indian and Asian flood.

Legislation was passed awhile ago which made it guaranteed & easy to get permanent residency in Australia if you are an international student who studies here. The legislation which has no caps placed upon it, is now being exploited. In a move which is nothing more than people smuggling fake colleges are being set up around the country for the purpose of allowing people to buy there way into the country.

Students whom enroll in these fake colleges simply pay their money to the "college" then are told to go on holiday and they'll be marked as attending classes. We have a situation where people are not properly screened when becoming a student, nor are they screened when becoming a permanent resident as a result. This has caused a situation where-by persons whom would not ordinarily gain entry to Australia, let alone permanent residency are doing so.

Can you smell the hypocrisy? On one hand we are told "boat people" are evil and should be imprisoned. The cold truth about "boat people" is they are often simply people whom have undergone tremendous adversity and persecute in their own country and have paid to flee to somewhere "safe". Yet Australia is building an international reputation for mistreatment of assimilate seekers, as we imprison them without charge nor defined length of imprisonment, in appalling conditions.

Meanwhile on the other hand, we are now letting random people from anywhere in the world enter and gain permanent residency without effective screening, simply because they came to Australia to study. It looks to me that your treatment in Australia depends on where you spend your money. Perhaps someone should let the "boat people" know all they have to do is pay to become a student and they'll get to fly legally into the country.

We need to plug this hole which left as is, will crumble our country and our culture under the feet of Indian and Asians. We need to set clear limits as to numbers of persons whom can study in Australia as an international student. We need to set clear legislation as to what constitutes an educational facility, and create a body capable of monitoring and enforcing said legislation. And while access to permanent residency should be made easier for international students in order to keep their skills in the country, they should not be exempt from the proper immigration process. Furthermore, permanent residency legislation in regards to students should be confined solely to Universities and TAFE colleges. Private college students should be exempt.

There are numerous countries around the world whom by way of immigration policy, their society is crumbling. The UK and America are examples of which. We need to heed the warnings which these examples demonstrate and create an immigration policy which protects our way of life, our culture and our society.