I'd like to discuss a variation of perception with you; Interpretation. The way we interpret the world around us dictates how we interact with it, and the experience we will have. But I'm sure you already knew that. What you may not have known however is that individual interpretation applies to everything we personally come in contact with. Lets take for example reading text. The way you interpret what I write in this blog may differ quite dramatically from how I intended it to be interpreted. But to apply a good example we'll use a simple sentence.

Lets take the sentence "The quick brown dog jumped over the log". Every non conjunctive word (ie. "the" in this case) in that sentence is open fully to interpretation. Your idea if constitutes "quick", "jumped" and "over" will most likely differ from mine. As will your interpretation of what sort of dog it would be and the size, type and description of the log. In this way there are an endless number of combinations in which to interpret that sentence. Lets for this example focus on the word jump from that sentence. A jump to one person might mean that the dog only just clears the log, to another person it could mean the dog almost just walks over the log, to another person the dog could comfortably clear the log and yet again to someone else it could mean the dog was quite high in the air indeed. The variations of this one word alone are quick numerous, having not listed them all here; but only a select few.

In this same way we interpret everything we see, hear, feel, smell and taste, entirely in an individual way, with endless combinations on how to interpret the event. Our memories of prior experiences play heavily on our interpretation of things, but are not in any way the only ruling factor. Our personality, current mood, the terms of the social situation we are in at the time, the context of the event, the environment we're in all play heavily amongst other factors on our interpretation. For this reason, not only does our interpretation of an event end up individual to us, but also to the moment in which it is interpreted. For it is likely, with a variation in some of the contributing factors, such as current mood, our interpretation of the same event will change.

Now lets apply this to real life situations where interpretation may have considerable effect. The legal/justice system comes first to mind for me. Take the written laws and the process of enforcing those laws through the judicial system. Each individual judge, being a living being; is subject to this same individual interpretation as everyone else. The way a judge interprets a certain law can not only vary from others in the court room, but indeed from how the law was originally intended to be interpreted. In the same way, the judges interpretation of a law is subjective to the same factors such as mood as everyone else. On top of that, the exact same influences affect what the judge views as a fair punishment. With all that in mind is it any real wonder why we have such huge variation in who is punished for what and in sentencing?

It is because of this individual interpretation that juries we formed. But the jury itself can become subject to influence of interpretation. If a half of the jury members, being vocal agree on an interpretation of an event, their vocal nature of this fact can influence the interpretation of other members of the jury. So if for example you have 3 or 4 members of a jury who feel that the defendant is guilty because of A, B & C and theses jury members are very vocal of their feelings and dominant in the group the rest of the jury members will change their interpretation to fit. Remember humans are herd animals, we instinctively slot into dominant or submissive roles when placed in a group situation. Does any of that sound like justice to you?

Another example is rental housing; through inspections. What the real estate person feels is appropriate will depend on their mood, their personality, how they feel about the tenant, etc. What passes one time, could not pass the next even though the same person from the real estate does the inspection. In fact third party interpretation can positively or negatively influence every aspect of life. Whether or not you get that job, whether or not you keep that job, all comes down to interpretation. Arguments you have with friends, family and spouses come down to interpretation. Even whether you have religious faith is a matter of interpretation.

In this way our reality is as individual as our interpretation of it. For this reason it could be argued there is a distinct absence of absolutes. That while facts exist, such as the sky most commonly looks blue through-out the day; there is a lack of absolute. That is to say the shade of blue for example is a matter of interpretation.

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?

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

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!

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iTWire Article

The Queensland state government has now lifted a ban on Homosexual couples and single people accessing surrogates. Apparently it's the state governments policy that everyone should have a baby, regardless of nature. Perhaps they should just send out roving vans handing out free babies or something? What part about a SINGLE person, that is someone who has no relationship, being able to have a baby does Anna Bligh think is logical? Do we not have enough out of control kids living with single mothers as it is, that Anna Bligh feels she needs to give them access to more, without needing a man or even having to go through pregnancy? That is TOTALLY INSANE!

Contray to what Anna Bligh seems to think it isn't backward to not want to give single people the ability to have babies; that's something called common sense. I know it seems to be something that is very thin on the ground now days and a concept that is certainly new to Anna, but common sense is this magically thing where you actually use your brain to figure out that your actions are going to have negative consequences before you do them, and then decide not to.

How is the state government going to justify the removal of this ban to all the children who result? Children born into a world with only 1 parent, ever! Doesn't matter which gender the parent nor the child is, it's a proven bad idea. If the government actually knew even the slightest about child psychology they'd know just how bad an idea this truly is. They'd know that children model behaviour from both gender parents, as well as learn how to function, interact with the opposite gender and even gather part of their self identity from BOTH parents. That is to say a MOM and a DAD are both EXTREMELY important. You only need to look at the last 30 years worth of psychological data, psychologist reports, medical intervention, suicides, crimes and other statistical data which stem from children of broken homes to see my point made. But perhaps and far more likely, they do know that, but simply don't care.

This is clearly a bid to grab some minority votes by a government which have burnt more bridges than you can poke a stick out. Anna Bligh is undeniably the WORST premier Queensland has EVER had. This is just another in a long line of REALLY bad decisions that the Bligh government have made, crushing our once great state into the ground. And what a waste of time and tax payer dollars the 3 days of debates over this issue where, when the Bligh government always had the majority of the house so it was always going to be passed. What was the point? To make us think like it was debated and this was the best idea that came out of it? Or to give an illusion that Australia still operates democratically? All I can hope is that the Bligh government will be voted out at the next election and the resulting new government will have enough sense to repeal the new law so that no more children will be hurt in this sick political game.

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

If you ever wanted to see justice come to missionaries, this story it is. The 5 Male and 5 female Christians from Ohio, USA who entered Haiti and stole 33 children have been denied bail. The group of 5 couples attempted to take the Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic with the idea of setting up an orphanage. The ill equipped group failed their duty of care with all 33 children suffering dehydration and hunger when they were stopped by border authorities. Some of the children also were injured and required urgent medical attention.

But perhaps even more scary is the fact the Christians seeming had forgotten (or perhaps they simply didn't care) to actually check the children they took really where orphans, with most of them actually still having living parents. A Haiti court has denied the group bail, ordering them to be remanded in custody; charged with kidnapping minors and criminal association.

In situations like this you just have to smile at the fact justice has actually prevailed. But you can't help but feel bad about all the millions who didn't have justice go their way. One would think by now Christian missionaries would be outlawed, I mean consider this; In the USA it was Christian Missionaries who stole native Indian children and denied them their culture. In Canada Christian missionaries did the same to the Inuit people and here in Australia they stole aboriginal children and trained them as servants. Now look at all the pain, suffering and money this has cost those countries? Yet we allow Christian missionaries to go forth from those very same countries and cause ever more havoc around the world.

At what point do our governments see the harm this is doing, at what point do they see that by allowing this practise to continue it costs governments more in tax payer funded charity. At some point surely our governments will see sense and benefit from ruling it illegal to go over seas as a missionary. Personally I think anyone who does such should be stripped of their citizenship and their actions dealt with in international court as crimes against humanity. Just remember, the worst acts in history were ALL perpetrated with the "best of intentions".

At any rate, I want to see more of these poor, third world countries standing up to missionaries, charging and imprisoning them for crimes like those of the 10 Christians in Haiti. If all third world nations did this, then perhaps just that would be a big enough deterrent to stop missionaries entering those countries in the first place.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

------

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

-----

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

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?

Imagine for a moment if you will, a world where your every action, your every personal whim is public domain. Imagine for a moment, the erosion of privacy in such a way as to allow corporations to know more about you than you know about yourself so they can advertise products directly to you. Image becoming even more of a consumer slave than you already are.

Imagine no longer, for this is the future that awaits. Advertising companies like Google and Facebook thrive on this information, without it they would be pennyless. So it comes as no surprise they are ever changing their privacy policies to allow just that little bit more of your information to be collected and collated.

Lets take Facebook as an example. Their recent privacy policy change makes way for new services to be introduced such as the new partnership with Microsoft. By linking you Xbox 360 to facebook you allow them to gather an incredible amount of data about your life. Not only what games, movies and music you play, watch and listen to. But also what times of day and in what manner you interact with them. What source they come from (great for weeding out pirate or download copies of movies, games and music), how long you interact with them.

They learn about your habits, just that little bit more. On it's own perhaps it's not so bad. But put that together with all the other information they have on you, your photos', your countless comments and status updates, your messages... it's all there for them to collate in order to produce a reliable picture of who you are. Take it in that context and it's just one more piece of the puzzle.

But lets escape the internet world for a moment and move to bricks and morter retail. What loyalty cards have been doing for years, soon RFID will do automatically. That is to say, track your purchases. We are fast moving into a world where each and every product you buy will be marked with an RFID chip. This means when you go to the store there will be no waiting in a queue, you simple exit the store with the things you want to buy.

A RFID frequency scanner will pick up all the items you have and charge them directly to your bank account or credit card. Sure that sounds super quick and easy. But it also means they'll know what days you shop, at what time, and what items you buy on what days. Your patterns will be analysed and targeted advertising can be delivered to you.

This of course is simple the tip of the ice-burg. There is plenty more to come, the implementation of free flowing tolls and smart card public transport ticketing are examples. Privacy folks is a thing of the past; we've given it up every time we sign up to a service like facebook. The big question is, will our children, or our grandchildren even have a proper concept of what privacy even is?

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?

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.

Recently facebook have decided to make their second change to their privacy statement in 4 months. Each successive change seems to be loosening the statement to remove privacy rights and allow them to share more of your personal information with a greater number of people. What is worse is that unless you’re a fan of the “facebook site governance” page than you won’t know about the changes, which you automatically agree to, by being a part of the site.

For a company that continually claim to be fully transparent, it’s a bit of a contradiction to hide these changes from the bulk of users, requiring users to fan a page they most likely have no idea exists. To make matters worse, while they claim to be letting their users whom actually are fans of the page give their input to the changes, it seems very much to be falling on deaf ears. Of the 1720 people who had commented by 2pm AEST on the 30th of October, all of them had issues with the new privacy statement. Yet none of their concerns have to date been met with any response from facebook and the changes are still going ahead.

The major points in the Facebook privacy statement to be wary of include the following quotes from the statement itself as displayed on facebook 30 October 2009.

"Access Device and Browser Information. When you access Facebook from a computer, mobile phone or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit."

Which gives them the right to build a database of devices, browsers, locations and IPs you use to access your information. This information paints a accurate picture of not only how, when and were you access facebook and the greater internet at large, but also places you go often, who your ISP is and an assortment of other information about you.

"We may receive information about whether or not you’ve seen or interacted with certain ads on other sites in order to measure the effectiveness of those ads....If in any of these cases we receive data that we do not already have, we will “anonymize” it within 180 days, meaning we will stop associating the information with any particular user"

This essentially gives facebook the right to place cookies on the device you used to access facebook and track which pages you use, how you interact with those pages and capture the data you input into those pages. It also grants them the right to find out directly from partner companies information they have gathered about you. All of said information gathered is then linked to YOU personally for the first 6 months before it, quite illogically is then made "anonymous". That is to say, your surfing habits, websites you visit, purchases you make, your credit card information, passwords and other personal information you input in other websites is collected by facebook, stored and linked to you. THAT is scary stuff.

"Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available, and therefore do not have privacy settings."

To bad if you only wanted your friends to be able to see your profile picture. Want to fan some pages? Be prepared for everyone you know to know about it. I'm sorry, but there are some things about my friends I just don't want to know.

"Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.”"

This means everything in the previous quote is accessible ANYWHERE on the internet, by ANYONE, will be searchable in google plus most other search engines and may be used by anyone who stumbles across this information for whatever purposes they see fit. It also means any information whose privacy settings you haven't actively changed from "everyone" is just as searchable in the same places. That includes phone numbers, email addresses, IM addresses, other personal information which you have entered into facebook, photos, videos and more.

"when you visit Facebook-enhanced applications and websites you are making your Facebook information available to someone other than Facebook. To help those applications and sites operate, they receive publicly available information automatically when you visit them, and additional information when you formally authorize or connect your Facebook account with them."

If it's set to "everyone" and is therefore "publicly available" then facebook don't need your permission to give this information to applications. They only require your authorization for information which is not "publicly available".

"Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users."

AND

"You understand that information might be re-shared or copied by other users."

Together add up to facebook giving people a green light to steal photo's, videos, information and other content from other users, without permission. The green light for them to store it and do with it what they see fit. Facebook will take no responsibility for such actions and will NOT publish any user for such actions. They are furthermore stating that just because you delete your account doesn't mean that the information you have given won't be searchable on google or other search engines. Essentially your information can never be deleted once it's on facebook.

"Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on Facebook. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software."

So basically if something goes wrong, it isn't there fault. Awesome.

Facebook boast 2 million pieces of content shared daily on their website, 20 billion pieces of content shared on facebook since its inception. Each one of those pieces of content is bound by the statements in the privacy statement. Each one of those pieces of content is now out in the great expanse of the internet for anyone, anywhere to do with as they see fit. Think about it, everything you share on facebook is collected, stored, shared and accessible. Every status message you put up, everyone photo, every website you visit, ad you click and don't click, everything.

How many of you have set your status to "is watching blah blah movie" or "is listening to blah blah song" or "is going here". Facebook get to store that information. Think of how well they know you, how accurate a picture they can make of who you are. Now think of this, their privacy statement lets them share that information with "partner companies". This is no longer a case of advertisers going well 51% of the population like this sort of advertising. It's a case of Joe Blogs likes x, y and z and it's best to advertise it in this way, on this day because this is when he will be doing whatever. Jane Doe on the other hand likes a, b and z and it's best to advertise to her in this way, in the afternoon because thats when she is the least busy.

The scariest thing is that there is no way for you to delete this information. No way to get it back. It's out there, forever, for everyone to see. Best we can do is either stop putting anything else personal on facebook or simply delete your facebook account. Sure you won't get your information back or delete it, but you'll at least stop anything else from becoming "publicly available" and isn't THAT at least some sort of solace?

Links;

Facebook Privacy Statement

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.

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.

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.

The consumption of goods and services, even when they are unneeded and sometimes even completely useless to us has steadily increased since the 1940s. As media has encroached ever more into our daily lives, so forth has advertising. The first major revolution in advertising came with the introduction of Television.

Suddenly with a television or a "TV", advertisers found a direct route into our living rooms. By linking their ads to popular TV shows or personalities, advertisers caught us while we had those warm fuzzy feelings associated with something we like. In doing so, we then associated their products and brands with those same warm fuzzy feelings. And so was born the age of the consumer, and we were set on a path which would have implications for social structure, mental health and even the environment.

With this new found power to creep into our homes, advertisers managed to con us into some pretty dodgy deals over the years. But as the years have moved on from the introduction of television, so has legislation and indeed the consumer. When advertising first appeared on TV, merely being associated with a program or personality was enough to send thousands running for the nearest stockist. As immunity to this approach grew, advertisers changed tactics, instead listing on the neat things the product can do or how great it will taste. We were shown fake images and told things which boarder on fraud. Again, the consumer changed, and so did the advertisers tactic.

Today, we find ads which instead of insisting a product is brilliant, we're simply told it will make us "cool", more popular or happier. These claims again are of course untrue and it is again only a matter of time before the consumer becomes impartial to such advertising campaigns and things have to change once more. But no matter how these ads are delivered, the core message is always there, and has been since the word go. It is the core message which ultimately drives consumerism; that being one needs all this "stuff" to be happy. That your life will somehow go unfulfilled without these products, and you will struggle to ever find happiness. Indeed we know this to be a complete and utter lie, and yet still the mass population fall for it.

In sheep like behavior, the mass population simply follow directions and purchase what they're told to. But indeed this is having the opposite effect than had been intended. There is much evidence to show consumerism actually decreases fulfillment and happiness, for it is simply an incarnation of materialism. Through consumerism we are fostering an "I" society; that is to say, a society focused inwardless in selfish need to make their own pile of "stuff" larger. We have a society which has over complicated itself in the aid of gathering said "stuff". Think about it, we go to work daily, to earn enough money to buy the never ending conveyor belt of "new stuff". We do this without thought or wonder, indeed like a trained monkey we feel happy about doing it.

The costs of which are our sanity and the environment we live in. For the many of us incapable of buying the "coolest" new toy, we feel less of a person, incomplete, after all that is the message the advertisers would have us believe. These feelings can lead to depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, even obsessive compulsive behavior. We are bombarded to buy ever more "stuff", to the point that obesity has hit epidemic proportions. It is strange to think, but the very thing that keeps capitalist economies running could, through over indulgence, break the economy all together.

But perhaps before that even occurs, our environment is at the brink of collapse through pollution caused by consumerism. Our waste has caused the environment to wither and die. The only solution for which is to cease our consumer behavior, and removed the products from which, from our society. But, human behavior what it is, I can hardly see that happening. Greed runs rampant in this modern capitalist world. If you are what you buy, then truly, what are you?

--edit--
Part 2 in this series will appear on Friday the 21st of August 2009. I apologise for any confusion

Consumerism. Marketing teams and companies alike would have us believe it will make us happier; that it will somehow improve and fulfill our lives. But deep down I think we all know that is an outright lie. Yet for some oddity, some of us, nay most of us, get sucked into the game. We consume at ever greater rates, products and services which fill us with empty promises of better, more exciting lives. Of more friends, a better job, more sex appeal, the list goes on..

Why do we do it to ourselves? What tricks are used on us? And is this limited to just adults? How much of a consumer whore have you truly become? These are just some of the questions I hope to explore in this multi-part series on consumerism. Expect the first addition to be released 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT+10).

As we take on greater amounts of technology into our everyday lives, are we losing our ability to interact socially? With a vast number of people globally having access to the internet and the never ending flood of new mobile phones, it seems an almost obvious question to ask. With their billions of users world wide, are social networking sites, designed to bring people together; having the opposite effect on social interaction?

For generation Y, the first generation to grow up with these kinds of technologies automatically around them; this is certainly seeming the case. We have a generation who have not had the fortune to have grown up learning physical social interaction, and as a result we are seeing not only people incapable of physical social interaction, but criminally anti-social behaviors as well.

That isn't to say that all Gen Y's are displaying these traits, but the numbers are certainly going up. I remember a time when children, teenagers and adults alike, knew that destruction of public property was a boundary not to cross. Knew that you should keep your hands to yourself and not harm anyone else, at least not without a really good reason. In todays' world, destruction of public property and Grievous Body Harm (GBH) are both done "for kicks".

Similarly there are suddenly people without any mental defect incapable of understanding how to interact appropriately with others. These people make up the majority of anti-social traits in modern times. Of these people the vast majority have problems even speaking to another person face to face, reduced to a tongue tied mess. These are people who are suffering; can you imagine not being able to walk into a shop and ask for help? Or the loneliness associated with such a condition.

But is it really their fault? Or is it down to technology? As humans, we learn to socialise through experience. Children play freely without care of consequence and speak their minds. It is from this that we learn social boundaries and thus become socially capable and confident. But as technology powers forward children are losing their chances for physical interaction experience. Lets take video games for example.

Before video games where invented, children used their imaginations more to play. This lead to adults who were capable of effective problem solving skills, and of course better social interaction skills, as children played outside with friends. Enter video games, and while they reduced the need for imagination, they were and remain more fun playing with friends. Up until recently however, to play a video game with a friend, they had to physically be in the room with you, this still gave one the opportunity to interact socially, and thus learn much needed skills. With the utilisation of the internet for gaming however, the need for physical presence for multi-player gaming has vanished and it's social interaction along with it.

Similarly social networking, with it's massive databases of users have done away with the simplest of social interactions. We now have a generation who have friends that they have never met and probably never will. And yet a vast friendship has formed. There are people in the world where their entire friend base can be described in this manner, and those who can be described that way are growing.

What is the solution, I haven't a clue where to begin short of pulling the plug on the whole thing. But what is certain is that if the trend continues within a matter of generations that can be counted on 1 hand, the ability to interact, socially, face to face may be lost entirely. And I think THAT is a real shame, sure to bring with it, endless problems.

I've had a number of run ins with Australia Post, missing mail, mail not delivered on time, etc. But today has to take the cake entirely.

When Sarah and I came home this morning we found someone from Australia post had been and gone to drop off a package, and had left one of those pick up form things. The mail man hadn't been yet, and we decided we'd pick it up this afternoon after picking up Bro from school and taking Hades to the doctor.

I got to Australia post at 4:20pm there where to people behind the counter and although there was a line stretching out the door we managed to pick up the package, no problems no hassles (except for having to line up with bro), all was smooth at this point. It was the shirts for the new uniform I've designed for my cleaning business. When we got home, I checked the mail and the letter box was chockers, amongst it was another pick up slip for a parcel.This one being Bro's mobile phone which has come all the way from England.

So we went back down to the post office, it was 5:14pm when we got there, and although they're officially meant to close at 5pm, they where still open serving customers. We lined up for a good ten minutes, anyone who has kids knows 10 minutes in a queue sucks. We got to the service desk and I handed her the pick up slip and was told she couldn't serve me. She said "we don't do parcels after 5 o'clock".

Puzzled as to what was going on, seeing that the package room was a mere 2 meters away from this woman I asked "My packages is actually in there right?" and she in a narky voice she told it she didn't know but it probably was. I asked her why she couldn't get my package then being that it's her job and she informed me it's because there is a large line and only two counter staff.

That is to say, the line was now much shorter then it had been an hour earlier when I picked up my first package of the day, and there had still only been 2 counter staff on at the time, and magically they were able to get my package then without hassle. Took them a whole 30 seconds to go out back pick it up, drop it in my hand and ask me to sign to say I'd collected it. How absolutely ridiculous that she couldn't have just gotten my package. If they're going to have rules like that they need to put up signs saying so, so people don't queue needlessly.

And of course needless to say, Bro was very upset. I mean they made the kid cry, because he goes to Chelsea's for the weekend tomorrow, so we're unable to pick up the phone until Monday. The boy is 8, he seen his phone had come and got excited. This bitch behind the counter couldn't do her job and so she made my son cry. And of course their website, nor their call center have any way to make a formal complaint either.

I appreciate that it was passed closing time, and that she probably wanted to get home. But I fail to see how walking 2 meters to get the package, then walking 2 meters back to the desk would have changed anything for her. The store was open, regardless of what time it was and thus should have provided it's full services or signed otherwise. It is completely unacceptable.

Links;

Australia Post website

The court room rant by suspected terrorist Wissam Mahmoud Fattal on Wednesday echo the inevitable culture clash. 33 year old, salami born, Mr Fattal said that the Australian military kill innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan and continued

"You call us terrorists, I've never killed anyone in my life."

before expressing his dislike of Australia and that he wanted to leave.

But the last I checked up until he was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Australian soldiers he wasn't being held captive here. In fact, if he disliked Australia so much and wanted to leave, why didn't he do just that? And this is the point, he didn't because even though he has Australian citizenship and thus swore allegiance to Australia; he still views himself as a Samali. And as a Samali man he wants justice for the people of "his" country, and friendly nations.

The point I have been trying to make isn't racist, it's simply an inevitable fact. If you bring people into a country, and those people still act as if they are in their previous country, and still have allegiance there to, you will no doubt create civil unrest. If you want a peaceful society, everyone has to be on the same page. That is to say, multiple cultures can not peacefully co-habitate the same area for an extended period of time.

As Australians we have, through the course of our history developed our own unique culture. A culture which is now under threat. This is not to say that people from another country are somehow inherently bad, or wrong or anything of that nature. It is not to say that we don't get many people immigrating who at their core are good people. What it is to say, is that for our community to exist peacefully, immigrants have to let go of their old culture and lives and embrace ours.

I would not for example expect I could immigrate to Iraq without accepting their local customs and ridding myself of those I learned in Australia. Similarly those moving to Australia can not expect to immigrate here without doing the same.

Wissam Fattal's comments highlight just how easy it is for extremists to gain entry into Australia. We have an immigration system now, which has inadequate screening and processing of potential immigrants. No person should be able to permanently reside here, who is unable to speak English, and who is unwilling to assimilate into Australian culture. We have gone from a system which let in 10,000 people a year, to one which lets in a similar number each month. Our country and our economy can't cope.

I have noticed of the course of running this blog that when Do gooders and Conspiracy nuts comment my blog with their banter about how terrible I am for speaking my mind because how dare I tell things as they stand, or that governments are really trying to control us they don't seem to actually put their name, even a first name in the name field. They make up some silly little descriptive text instead. Where as people who actually have something constructive to add, or dare I say it comment in agreement with me actually put their name in the name field.

I find that very telling of these peoples state of mind. They're happy to make these; lets face it dumb; comments which show they didn't quite grasp the concepts of my posts or in the case of some conspiracy nuts; grasp reality at all, but only on the condition that they think they're completely anonymous. Oh yes, the wondrous thrill of being anonymous! You can finally say what is on your mind without fear of reprisal, and of course the internet is anonymous right? I mean you can call yourself whatever you like and no one can see your face unless you want them to.

Unfortunately the internet isn't really a haven for being anonymous, everything you do online leaves a trail. One which leads straight back to your front door. See, when you sign up, perhaps all excitedly, for your internet connection you give them you name, address, phone number, blah blah blah all your personal details. Now while you're connected to the internet you have this brilliant little thing called an IP Address. Now your IP address is how the server say this website is on, knows to send this page to your computer. Think of it like a physical mailing address, if you wanted me to send you a picture I'd need to know where to send it right? Same goes for computers.

Now the brilliantly wonderful thing about IP Addresses is that they're exclusive to a single person at a time. That is to say, when you're online your IP Address is unique. And what do we know about things that are unique boys and girls? They're traceable!! As certain IP addresses belong to different countries and even different ISPs inside of those countries, it's easy to figure out where in the world you live, and what ISP your internet is going through. Now here's the fun part! It's easy as heck, with just an IP Address to find out someone's Name, Address and Phone number, from their ISP.

Guess what, this site as well as most popular sites on the web; such as facebook, myspace, Anything google (including YouTube), Anything Microsoft, etc. automatically collect IP Addresses from their visitors. This is a security measure so undesirable persons can be excluded and criminal charges can be brought if so is required. And so boys and girls, thus ends another lesson on how you are never anonymous. And from this lesson I hope people stop sending me Do gooder comments, the conspiracy theories can stay though, they make me laugh.

A Doomadgee girl has died after allegedly being refused medical attention on 4 separate occasions in the week leading up to her death. Doomadgee Hospital has allegedly been turning away patients and choosing to treat people outside, amidst fears of Swine Flu. The girl was finally admitted to Doomadgee Hospital Wednesday, but died Thursday while awaiting transfer to Mount Isa Base hospital.

The understandably upset grandparents are choosing to play the race card, stating that her treatment, (or lack thereof) was because she was Aboriginal. I on the other hand disagree completely. Far to often issues are turned into a racially orientated thing, when they aren't even close. Instead I put it to you that this incident demonstrates quite clearly the inadequate medical staff and training in Queensland hospitals.

Far from living out in the sticks, I a white man living in South East Queensland, have experienced the constant lack of regard for life Queensland Hospitals have become known for. Even so far as our current experience with Queensland Hospitals as a result of our son being born. The level of incompetence is unequivocally off the scale, to the point up until my intervention today they had no clue how to switch Dee from bottle feeding to breast, because they had failed to offer him a breast feed within the first 12 hours of life.

Far from being a race issue, the true problem here is that Queensland Hospitals simply aren't up to scratch. We have staff who are allegedly turning people away from medical care; disgraceful. But it isn't anything new! Ipswich Hospital's Emergency department adopted a new strategy in dealing with their overload of patients; simply turn some of them away. In fact, if after a 2 minute glance by a nurse if you're deemed "non-urgent" you're told to see your GP instead.

We have an underfunded, overstretched health system in Queensland, staffed by underpaid workers. This is hardly a recipe for attracting the great minds in medicine; yes come work 72 hour shifts with equipment that doesn't work properly and is older than you are, for next to minimum wage. They'll truly have them lining up out the door won't it. Wake up Anna Bligh, it's time to do your job properly and fund out health care system adequately. The blood if this little girl, and all others who have died as a result of the incompentency of staff and inadequate funding from the government is firmly on the hands of the Queensland Government and those whom administer Queensland Public Hospitals.

While I am aware I am going to get a lot of abuse over this post regardless of what I say here, I would like to make it clear the intention of this post is NOT to link Homosexuals and Pedophiles, or relate the two in ANY way at all. The use of Homosexuals in this post is merely to illustrate how the rights process historically works.

A mere 30 years ago coming "out of the closet" meant not only complete social suicide, but there was something dreadfully wrong with you. Up until the mid 1970's Homosexuality was considered a mental illness and was described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which is published by the American Psychiatric Association and recognised in the western world as the document to use in Diagnosing mental disorders.

At some point in the mid 1970's our morals and values changed and while homosexuality was still a dirty word, it wasn't quite as bad. From here, there were slight reductions in how badly homosexuality was viewed right up until the mid to late 1990's where the Gay Rights campaign really took hold of societies collective heart, and the oppression of being "politically correct" set in.

Today, in 2009 not only is it socially acceptable to be Gay, but it's cheered. Gay pride echos through out society, it touches everywhere, from our schools to our grocery store. Now what once was considered a mortal sin, is now a celebrated part of culture. It took 25 years to happen, from the inception of the Gay Rights Movement.

Enter pedophilia, which is currently still considered a mental disorder and is socially morally reprehensible. The passion of hate conjured up in some people at the mere mention of the word is almost indescribable. But now, pedophiles are starting to demand rights under the law. You could say, historically speaking they're now at the same point Gay Rights way in the early 1970's.

The big thing that kept the progress of the Gay rights movement back was tolerance, and a society unwilling to tolerate new ideas. The problem today is the oppression of being "politically correct" has got society to a stage they'll almost tolerate anything. It is for this reason a properly organised, backed and pushed Pedophile Rights campaign wouldn't take anywhere near as long as 25 years.

The concern here is, will at some point being a pedophile be considered just another sexuality, just as homosexuality is today? Organisations such as NAMBLA certainly hope that one day they will be able to walk down the street with their child lovers, pride beaming on their faces. I on the other hand, want to gag at the thought.

But still the Pedophile rights movement is there, fostering in the background, readying itself to hit the mainstream and go live. There is little stopping it, our culture as programed us to tolerate everything. So the real question is, when pedophiles get their way, when they have legal rights. Will you still protect your children? And if so... how?

Links;

NAMBLA
Free Republic
Volconvo Forums