I don't usually go on a big deal about internal workings of other countries but this story is too much not to talk about and mirrors the attitude of our local law enforcement officials. On July 5th, 2011 6 police officers from Fullerton, California came in contact with a mentally ill homeless man, now identified as Kelly Thomas. The Fullerton police department claim Kelly Thomas was stopped as the police suspected him of breaking into cars at a bus station parking lot and that Kelly Thomas "resisted" arrest. The following two videos show graphically what happened; be warned you WILL be disturbed and outraged.

This video was shot from the camera in a mobile phone of one of the people sitting at the bus station. You can hear the tazer being fired relentlessly as Kelly Thomas screams helplessly for his father.

In this video you can see more closely what the police are doing to Kelly Thomas. You can seem him motionless as police continue to pound on him and you see a Fullerton cop HIT the man videoing the scene in an attempt to get him to stop filming. They then threaten everyone with jail if they don't leave the scene and stop witnessing the event. Personally I would have chosen to stay, going to jail standing up for that guy is better to me than running away and leaving him for dead.

Kelly Thomas later died as a result of the horrific injuries he received that night from police. One look at the before and after shots below and it's not hard to imagine why he died. You have to keep in mind these injuries were dealt out by on duty police officers to a schizophrenic man whom they claim was "resisting arrest".

Now here is the kicker, out of the 6 police involved 5 not only are still on active duty, they didn't receive a single day off as a result. The 6th officer is off duty on leave unrelated to the case. In other words, none of the officers whom did the damage clearly shown have been penalised in any way. The investigative DA responsible for the internal investigation of this case is close friends with the police chief, they holiday together and hang out at each others houses. The major of Fullerton doesn't even understand what the big deal is! Listen to this local radio broadcast from the 28th of July with an anonymous friend of a Fullerton cop.

You can only imagine how horrific the video the caller is talking about is to watch. These cops have a lot to answer for, but the big question is will they? And will anything internally in the police department change as a result of this event? More than anything what I hope people take away from this event is to get involved because if more citizens had gotten involved in this incident & sooner, then there is a good chance this man would never have died. I'm pretty sure a night in the watch house is price well worth paying to save a life otherwise unjustly taken.

You could be forgiven for making the mistake that most developed western countries are trying to end global poverty; this simply isn't the case. If you think for a moment about the plethora of "famous" people whom have asked the "middle" and "lower" classes to folk over some money to help people in 3rd world countries you'll understand that with less than a 1/3 of each of said "famous" peoples combined incomes world poverty could end over night. Likewise "charity" organisations like world vision ask us to pay money every month to "support a child" in a 3rd world country. And yes of the $30 or so that we give without thinking less than a DOLLAR actually reaches the child it's supposedly for.

These are systems designed to make the average person living in a western society feel as though we're doing something to fix poverty, without actually ever doing anything constructive to fix the problem. It stops consumers from feeling so guilty about the abhorrent conditions the people whom make their goods live and work in. Sure you can point to programs digging wells for fresh water in some communities and the like, but these programs are slow, intended to be so and targeted towards future workforces.

Next time you buy clothes, stationary, sheets, towels or many other CHEAP consumer goods check out were the product is made. China, Taiwan (which is technically part of China), India and Africa these are the names you're likely to see. You're also likely to have noticed the price of consumer goods made in China have gone up slightly over the last 18 months; there is a very good reason for that and why China made goods will continue to rise in cost. Recently the mood of the workforce in China has changed, they're starting to demand better pay, more rights and so forth. With these demands comes a higher cost of manufacture which, long story short translates into a higher consumer price.

It's for this reason when you compare the same goods manufactured in a western country with those of China, India or Africa the product manufactured in a western country is always at least double the price. The consumer lifestyle you enjoy was built on the suffering and poverty of others, and requires that to continue in order to keep prices low. As the Chinese workforce continue to demand better working conditions we'll see a shift to more products being made in India and Africa were such demands don't exist...yet!

Without these impoverished nations and desperate people can you imagine how insane the cost of living would be? Really have a think about all the products you buy which are made in these countries and owe their cost to the near slave labour used during manufacture. Now double the price you paid for those items, add them all together and you're getting close to understanding how much higher your cost of living would be without the 3rd world.

Regular site readers will have noticed that comments have been turned off for a number of weeks now. This is a temporary measure in an attempt to stem the flood of spam this blog was starting to attract. Rest assured that comments will return shortly and as always I hope you continue to find this blog useful, interesting and entertaining.

Before a group of men took control of 4 US domestic bound planes, in September of 2001 we still had Muslims immigrating to western countries like the USA, Canada, Britain and Australia. The number of such immigrants was still on the rise and I assume, the same things that offend them now, offended them then. The difference? No one cared! The idea of banning the burqa wasn't a taboo subject to us, their religion was hardly even considered in our dealings with them, let alone having governments and business through-out western countries notice that anything they did could possible offended them. And finally they were (and may I remind you still are) a MINORITY immigrant group & WERE thus, treated as such.

Flash forward to today however & despite the minority status of Muslims, how things in OUR countries and OUR cultures might offend them seem to be constantly on the minds of government and business; if not the general populous as well. Fast food outlets have changed their cooking methods so as not to upset the Muslim minority, UK toy stores have begun removing toy pigs from farmyard play sets, the burqa suddenly has to be protected by law with any mention otherwise is socially wrong, in Australia; the land of the bikini; it's now against the law to swim at some victorian public pools without being totally covered so the Muslim minority won't be offended by the sight of feminine skin and we continue to change OUR culture to better fit THEIR culture. I'm sure you can think of a few examples yourself. So what in the last decade changed?

In the USA during 2001 4 civilian, domestic, commercial aircraft were hijacked by force and flown into important economic and military buildings. In the UK during 2005 4 suicide bombers targeted British metro and buses during the busy morning peak hour. And in Australia during 2009 an attempt was made by 5 men to take over Holsworthy Military base. After each of these events & with each subsequent THREAT of more attacks the level at which we attempt not to offend this minority group of immigrants increases. Ha, and they say terrorism doesn't pay off; or that our governments won't give in to terrorist demands, yet here we are.

Suicide bombings in the middle east have been going on for decades, yet they only started being reported in the news since our troops have been there. These bombings never used to bother us, and I suggest, if our troops weren't there I doubt they would bother us now. So the question is, how is a war in these countries a war on terrorism? The terrorists we want to stop aren't over there, they're in OUR countries, quietly going about their lives, paying taxes & blending in. The real terrorists aren't in some far off land, they're in OUR own backyard waiting for the right time to strike; and we all know it.

And yet what really are we doing to fight that war? This isn't a war on terror, the terrorists have already won as we sit in our homes to fearful that our cultures and ways might offend Muslim IMMIGRANTS to OUR countries.

That of course is not to say violence against Muslims should be undertaken, because it shouldn't & achieves nothing; so please don't do it. It's also not to say that all Muslims are terrorists or plotting against us. What I am saying though is that OUR culture should no be changed, warped & distorted in order to not offend a minority group of IMMIGRANTS. If someone for sale offends a Muslim, they should do what the rest of us do in such a situation and simply not buy it. And if they don't like our way of life could they please remember, no one asked them to move to our countries, THEY asked us if they could move here; there is nothing keeping them here so they can always just go back to where they came from if they think we're so offensive.

When we take up our pre-9/11 attitudes towards minority immigrant groups once more then we win against terrorism. Sure we might be subject to further attacks, but at least we'd still have our national dignity and integrity which is much more then we can say for ourselves now.

Back in January this year I purchased and reviewed the Kogan Agora netbook in a blog post. Whilst it did have a few minor flaws the unit definitely seemed up to scratch and well worth the minuscule price tag, which also included a 12 month warranty. However 6 months later I found my experience with Kogan to be an entirely different one, given the battery in the netbook had decided to give out; and despite the fact it was still under and covered by warranty I even offered to PAY for a new battery in the hopes that would speed the process up (In my experience warranty claims can take what seems like a life time).

For 2 months their sales and customer support teams fobbed me off with excuses that they would be receiving a new shipment of batteries "soon" and I would be notified when they do; however they failed to ever materialise. Finally I wrote to them and asked them to confirm a specific date in the near future when they will be receiving the batteries or if they can not, to please point me in the direction of another stockiest, given that 2 months had passed without mobile use of my netbook rendering it near useless; I thought this was more than a reasonable request. Kogan responded by informing me that they would actually not be getting a shipment of batteries in period (so they'd just been stringing me along through 2 months of back and forth emails) and that they were not prepared to locate another stockiest for me! So basically not only have they violated the terms of their own warranty, but they have broken the law.

A netbook battery should not last a mere 6 months of normal operation before giving out to the point the battery will hold just 7 minutes of charge. But when you consider that Kogan import their stock from no-name cheap Chinese manufacturers and slap a Kogan sticker on it I suppose you can't expect much more. But more over a company should keep stock of product parts (certainly when said product is still actively on sale) and certainly respond positively towards customers whom have products still covered by warranty. Their failure to do so would lead me to suggest that Kogan are most likely not the sort of reputable company that the average consumer should do business with. Certainly in this case you get what you pay for, a product that will break within a few months and no customer service to set things right.

Australia; The greatest country on the planet. Not great simply because I was born here and am a patriot, Not great because of it's alliance with powerful nations like the U.S.A and Britain. Not even great because of it's political accomplishments. And whilst it is an absolutely stunningly beautiful country, that fact only adds to it's greatness, not encompasses its greatness. The true key reason Australia is the greatest country on the planet is the people. The humour, character, ingenuity and strong will of the Australian people defines this amazing nation. Our helpful, friendly and laid back nature lay at the very soul of our awesome land.

But for all the greatness we possess, it could be; and arguably should be; even better. For all the friendliness there lacks a significant unity which detracts from our quality of life. I would like to see that change. I would love to see an Australia where regardless of your gender, skin colour or religious beliefs you are paid the same wage as everyone else in your employing organisation performing the same job. I would like to see an Australia where minority groups stop drawing attention to the fact they're different and a minority; Where every citizen was meaningfully united under the same banner as Australians.

Where the soul of our country truly comes alive and is embodied in all of its citizens to meaningfully work together to better their communities and the nation as a whole. I do not see any valid reason why every Australian, regardless of whether they live in a city, a small town or in the regional outback should not both expect and receive the same quality and abundance of services. I see no valid reason why 2 people regardless of gender should not be able to come together in love.

As we move into an era where our climate is change dramatically, where the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological arms is ever growing & where terrorism from all sides is a persistent problem, our petty differences of gender, race, sexuality and nationality begin to seem insignificant and trivial. Ultimately any country can only be as great as it's people, it can only be what it's people make it. So here and now we, as Australians must decide how great we want our country to be and where we want to take it in the future for our children and grandchildren. Together, there is no problem the world is facing that we can not over-come.

Have you noticed that since the price of oil went shooting up years ago petrol stations seem to think it's ok to charge insane amounts for a Litre of petrol? Even though the price of oil has dropped $30/barrel since we seen Australian petrol stations charge up to $1.60/L and returned to a value around that when petrol started to cost $1.09/L we're still seeing petrol stations charging as much as $1.40/L!

What's more the price of petrol fluctuates even through-out the same day, let alone between days, and those fluctuations are independent of oil prices. We've all seen petrol prices jump 16c in 1 day! But if it's not oil prices driving it, what is? If you believe Caltex CEO Julian Segal it's competition between petrol stations that causes the petrol cycle, and we must assume given the ACCC hasn't done anything to stop the price fluctuating so much that the Australian government buys that excuse.

But anyone who understands even the basics of business knows that competition drives prices down, not up! And anyone who pays attention to petrol prices knows that they all go up on the same day and all come down on the same day... It has all the hall marks of a price fixing rort, and no one is doing anything to stop it! I suppose most people have until recently though been able to live with it, given the predictability of prices being their lowest on Tuesdays. Enter a recent drop in cigarette prices and suddenly the "cheap" day is Saturday mornings. News papers report on the shift in day from Tuesday to Saturday and the "cheap" day shifts one day over to Sundays...

After another news report petrol vendors have now decided to mix up the "cheap" day each week. This week it was Monday morning, next week, who knows! Again, they're all still moving their prices up and down in the exact same way, on the exact same days. In fact the difference between prices, between big brand servo's, like Shell & Caltex is NIL! So with the ACCC unwilling to do anything to stop this obvious price fixing scam what are we to do? It seems for now, we're doomed to be ripped off on petrol, and be constantly guessing as to which day of the week will be the cheapest, or at least halfway near reasonable!

This isn't a long term solution though and the alternative of course is to leave the car at home and jump on board our miss managed, over crowded public transport, which in most situations near doubles the time the trip takes. Eventually something is going to have to give, either our public transport system is going to have to get dramatically better, and soon; or someone, somewhere is going to have to do something to stop Petrol price fixing and reduce the price of petrol to where it should be, which is somewhere around $1.09/L.

Links;

Crude oil prices
Adelaide Now article on Petrol Prices

This Saturday Australia will vote for who will lead the nation for the next term of government. What disturbs me greatly is that despite all that Julia Gillard has done, she remains high in the opinion polls and seems to have come out looking squeaky clean; whilst Tony Abbott gets labelled negatively. This isn't to say that I think Tony Abbott is a great man or anything of the sort, and perhaps he does deserve how he has been labelled; what I am saying however is that Julia Gillard has done far worse and will do far worse again.

Lets think about this logically for a moment, Julia Gillard as the Minister for Education was directly responsible for the School halls rip offs, directly responsible for wasted tax payer funds rebuilding the exact same class rooms schools already had without room for expansion. As deputy Prime Minister, with Kevin Rudd out of the country on he's tax payer funded world trip, Julia Gillard was to blame for the stimulus blunder which seen millions of tax dollars paid to dead people or people living in other countries than Australia. Last I knew dead people and people in another country can't directly impact retail sales in Australia which is exactly what the stimulus package was supposed to do. Heck retail sales are still low even after 310 BILLION dollars of debt.

Julia Gillard voted against the increase to the pension. She voted against any form of government run/funded paid maternity leave. Then she claimed she was only saying wait we need to get the numbers first to make sure we can afford it. Sorry Julia but I need an explanation as to why you were apparently being so fiscally responsible with these two initiatives but took no care fiscally in the initiatives in the paragraph above. It all happened around the same time, so it's not like she had learned from her mistakes and grown as a leader. I can not accept her reasoning because frankly she's lying through her teeth.

And lets seriously not forget the historical event where for the first time in the history of Australia a deputy Prime Minister challenged the leadership of the current Prime Minister. Australia voted for and elected Kevin Rudd as our representative, I didn't like it but it's who the majority chose. Julia Gillard had NO RIGHT to remove him from his democratically appointed position! If Labor didn't want Kevin Rudd as their leader at this election, they should have had Kevin Rudd call an election and then trumpet Julia Gillard as the person who would take control if Labor won the election. Instead, there were whispers and secrets behind closed doors. Conversations that the Australian public is not being allowed to hear, and a two faced persona where up until the very day she challenged Kevin Rudd she was claiming full support behind him as the Prime Minister. Julia Gillard is clearly a self serving, manipulative, two faced person with NO INTEREST in the great good for the Australian public.

This election she has come to Australians and instead of announcing the FACT that she intends to pass an ETS if Labor is elected, she has come at us with this non-sense about a public forum to discuss whether we have an ETS in Australia or not. She has on countless times dodged the question by the Media, but has once on the sly answered it. On Q&A when the host pushed and pushed her on the issue she quietly and quickly noted that she never said the "citizens assembly" would actually count towards policy. In other words, it's a waste of time and a waste of tax payer money. Labor intend to bring in an ETS, without any evidence it will have a positive effect, and if their CPRS is anything to go by such a lower carbon reduction amount as to have NO (ie. NONE) benefit to fixing climate change.

She has also gone into this election and literally two days out, has still failed to announce who would be taking up which cabinet positions should Labor retain government. Who would be our foreign minister? Our minister for Defence? We don't know basically anything about who would be in what portfolio if Labor wins on Saturday. How can we honestly vote for Labor when we don't know who will be handling what sections of the community?

She has been talking up the NBN, but can't answer how many houses will be connected during the governments next term should Labor win on Saturday. But beyond that has out right lied about the speed of the NBN and has completely failed to mention the retail costs. In fact the NBN won't be delivering speeds of 1Gb/s as Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy have claimed, it will be capable of a max speed of 1gbps per switch which contains 32 connections. In other words that 1gbps gets split between 32 houses, making the theoretical maximum 312mbps. While that's still super fast, nothing like those speeds will actually be on offer to the public anyway. If you visit any of the ISP websites who are providing retail packages for the NBN (iiNet, iPrimus, Internode, Telstra) you'll note that the top speed on offer is 100mbps download SPEED with a still slow 8mbps upload. That's the very top on offer. Ultimately though, those speeds count for nothing if you go over your data limit, so if you're after a 100mbps connection with a reasonable data limit you're actually looking at around $160/month! Go over your download limit and you're back to DIAL UP speeds anyway making the NBN worthless given it's costing Australians $43 BILLION and rising to build! Heck did you even realise that those speeds count for nothing if you visit a website hosted outside Australia?

Julia Gillard is a member of and supported and backed by Emily's List. I wasn't actually sure what this organisation was until recently when I did some digging. In fact Emily's list is a powerful pro-womens group with some pretty messed up thinking. Emily's List supports FULL TERM abortions; ie. Abortions right up until the moment the mother gives birth! So in a world ruled by Emily's List members if a woman got to 36 weeks pregnant and decided she no longer wanted to have a baby, no problem she could STILL have an abortion! Seriously! You can delude yourself all you like about a baby in the first trimester not being alive, but at 36 weeks gestation there is absolutely no question that baby is alive, fully formed and taking down memories. As a backed and supported member of Emily's List, Julia Gillard agrees with this stance on abortion! Emily's List also supports something that have dubbed affirmative action in the work place; ie. Where men will be actively discriminated against when it comes to promotions until there are an equal number of woman through-out all levels of business as there are men. This would make promotions based on gender rather than genuine talent. Again, as a backed and supported member of Emily's List Julia Gillard supports affirmative action in the work place!

Julia Gillard until very recently was the secretary of the Socialist Forum, an organisation devoted to turning Australia into a socialist country much like North Korea is. As the former secretary Julia Gillard shares this view.

As I've said, in the past Tony Abbott has done some stupid, odd and down right dreadful things, but if you compare everything he has done, to date next to Julia Gillard, he isn't even fit to stand in her sneaky, sleazy, manipulative shadow. I don't intend this post to sway your vote, we live in a free democracy where each and every Australia has the right to make up their own mind and vote for whoever they wish. But what I do want this post to achieve is a better understanding of who and what Julia Gillard actually is. So if you do vote for Julia Gillard in 2 days time, please remember what you are voting for and don't whine and cry bloody murder when she retains government and truly screws Australia.

It's unfortunate, but in today's modern age of computers we need to be ever security conscious. Here is a list of software security enhancements for Windows PCs which won't break the bank!

1. Anti-Virus

• AVG
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• Avast
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• Ad-Aware
  This Free addition of Ad-Aware will help keep your computer free from spyware & malware. Ad-Aware is award winning and comes highly recommended.

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3. Firewalls

• Zone Alarm
  Zone Alarm Free edition has been the firewall choice of PC experts for over a decade. Not only does it stop inbound traffic hacking your PC, it also stops malicious programs installed on your PC "phoning home". It even has the ability to "stealth" your computer so hackers can't even see you! If you're after a stand alone software firewall, this is my pick

  Publisher's Website Download Cost: Free

• Online Armor Free
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Our children are being exploited in increasing numbers; and not directly by paedophiles either, yet there is no community outcry, no angry mob beating down doors, no fliers being plastered through-out communities. Instead our communities aren't only silent about these exploitations of children, but they're accepted, even welcomed in some cases. Which leaves me wondering, why is there so much hatred for paedophiles and yet not for these other exploits of children which are just as bad, if not worse? Now please don't take this the wrong way, I am completely 100% against paedophilia, but I don't limit my outrage to just those who directly, physically rape our children, but instead I direct it to ANY and ALL sexual exploitation of children, period.

In this post I will briefly discuss the 7 ways our children are being exploited in the hope that our communities may finally wake up to what is going on and the same sort of outrage which paedophilia achieves, could be directed to these exploits as well.

1. Advertisers & Marketing

Open up a kids clothing catalogue and take a hard realistic look at the way their posed, and how they're made up. Perhaps after taking a look you'll start to understand the tip of this iceberg. Increasingly children are being posed in adult, mostly sexually explicit ways in order to sell junk to the relatively newly formed "tween" market. But the problems with the "tween" market, which comprises 6-12 year olds, don't stop at simple catalogues, but extend to a whole range of products produced and marketed directly to this demographic which encourage them to act in adult & sometimes sexually explicit ways.

2. Adult orientated textiles

It has now gotten to a point where you can walk into the girls section of any department store and find an assortment of sexually explicit, adult style clothing. Padded, push-up bra's are now available for children as young as EIGHT! G-STRINGS (Thongs) are available for toddlers as young as FOUR! And Bikini's can be purchased for babies whom aren't even ONE YEAR OLD. But the problem isn't exclusive to girls underwear and swimwear. There are mini-shirts for toddlers, see through and plunging neckline shirts for 6 year olds, in fact if you can think of it in adults clothing, be it men's or women's it will exist for children now days.

The slogans printed on children's clothes now days leaves a lot to be desired as well. I seen one the other day for young girls which read "How I am meant to know what's right?", which as far as I can see only encourages girls to act stupid and for sexism to be rife.

3. Social Networking

As I discuss in my recent post "Paedophiles and Social Networking" parents, family and friends are placing naked, or near naked photo's of their children on social networking sites, where perhaps unknown to them, anyone on the planet can view the images. If you haven't checked it out already I suggest you do.

But more than just the images being placed on social networking is the direct risk of exposure to paedophiles, fake profiles, identity scam and cyber-bullying that allowing our children to use social networks brings. The mere fact that they're allowed to use social networks unsupervised puts them at even greater risk.

4. Music Videos & Song Lyrics

Listen to the lyrics of any of the current Top 10 songs and you'll find degradation of women, sexually explicit language, the description of sexually explicit acts and drug use. Watch their music videos and you'll see much of the same. As children idolise these performers they copy them, and form their views to social subjects based on the lyrics in these songs.

What's more Music Videos containing highly graphic sexual imagery and degradation of women can be viewed any Saturday or Sunday morning amongst or immediately following the kids cartoons. These videos have become little more than softcore pornography and yet we allow our young children to not only watch it, but to idolise and mimic it!

5. TV Shows & Pop Film

Film & TV seem to have lost their ability to produce quality family entertainment. Instead we're bombarded by a constant stream of sexual orientated language and scenes, adult themes, swearing, softcore porn and hardcore violence, even during childrens viewing times.

Icons like Warner Brothers loony toons are no longer innocent, lovable family entertainment. Now they've been recreated into a crime solving, ninja force through Warner Brothers latest concept "Loony Toons Unleashed". The premise of the show is that they go around vigilante` style killing and beating up "bad guys". While some of the old time sound bytes like Bugs Bunnies iconic "what's up doc" are still present in the show, the characters are almost unrecognisable. It's a trend that has hit every popular 70's and 80's children's classic, turning them all into violent reincarnations of their former selves.

6. Tween market peer-pressure

With advertisers pushing their adult orientated "tween market" so hard, kids are no longer able to be kids. For those who try they only face ridicule and peer pressure to conform. Now days 7 year olds feel it's not only appropriate but necessary to wear make-up, to dress like adults, to have cell phones and all the rest. Children as young as 8 are now deciding to experiment with sex, which the market has confused them into thinking equates to love, with their "boyfriends" & "girlfriends".

7. Sexting

With 6 year olds now owning cell phones, and a high charged sexual advertising environment around them it should come as very little surprise that pre-teens are sending naked &/or sexually explicit photo's of themselves to their friends by way of MMS. Unfortunately this often leads to the image being forward to all the students at the child's school and can end up literally anywhere, including posted on the internet for all to see, including paedophiles.

We have now entered into a weird sort of a world, where the mere mention of the word paedophile causes hysteria, over-emotional reactions and most of all hatred. Yet on the other hand some of the same people feel that placing naked images of their children, say in the bathtub; on public spaces such as social networking sites is fine. The thing is, a naked image of a child in a public space is always a naked image of a child in a public space, regardless of where it came from or it's intentions. An individual example is a woman on Sarah's facebook profile whom has placed pictures of her 15 year old niece wearing ONLY her underwear, posed in a sexual way on facebook. When Sarah commented on the photo's negatively the woman claimed Sarah was just jealous of the 15 year old's body. Now I'm sorry but placing sexually explicit images of a minor online is a CRIMINAL offence. And yes that law applies to naked photo's of toddlers and babies as well.

So the question has to be asked, why do people whom are so strongly opposed to paedophilia posting photo's of children online which are in the legal classification as child porn? I think a small part of the answer lies in the fact that many people still haven't caught onto the realities and limitations of social networking. People treat their profiles as if they're a lounge room with their friends all sitting around chatting, when in actual fact social networking is much more like trying to have a private discussion with your friends on the busiest street on the planet, while someone takes notes, makes copies and spreads those copies to all the other streets on the planet.

That is to say, social networking sites aren't private places. You can be upset about that all you like, you can talk about how they should be, but the fact of the matter is they aren't, and due to the nature and function of the internet they CAN'T be either. We need to be aware of what about ourselves and more importantly our children we're placing online. Images of naked, or near naked minors should never, under any circumstances be placed online. It places those minors at risk and is a criminal offence.

It seems to me that there are an unusually high number of major things in the world RIGHT NOW which could, if continuing on their present course, spell either the downfall of humanity and in some cases other species of earthly life as well. This post is a list of those things.

1. Potential for World War III

There are a number of events happening in the world currently which could ultimately spark World War III, these include; rising tensions inside the world wide Muslim community as extremists call upon Muslims living in western countries to destroy democracy and instil Islamic law. With Muslim groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir rallying Muslims living in the west to revolt and create a transnational Islamic state. Heck, the USA has even received a fresh threat of attacks on America which will make 9/11 pale in comparison.

At the same time, North/South Korean tensions are rising, with the USA pushing the UN to act harshly on North Korea. Similarly Israeli/Palestinian tensions are increasing as well, with Israel ruling out any chance of an independent Palestinian state by 2012. Israel has even begun aggression against nationals from it's ally states such as the USA in the recent commando raids upon Turkish humanitarian aide flotillas.

Iran is definitely a threat to global peace as the UN steps up sanctions against the country, which not only has nuclear weapons but now has commercially viable autonomous humanoid robots. And lastly China, with their entry into the capitalist world is hungry for global dominance. The have an almost inexhaustible number of soldiers, more money than you can poke a stick at and well, they seem to own most of the world now anyway.

2. Climate Change

This one really is a no brainer. Our climate is clearly changing, defined sessions are quickly becoming a thing of the past in my neck of the woods. Seas are rising, and the world seen the first climate change refugee's in 2008. Climate change means some REALLY nasty things are headed our way.

3. The BP oil spill

While the fact the BP oil spill has been spewing 911,454,000 litres of oil into the sea per day for the passed 72 days is a bad enough ecological disaster which will likely see the Gulf of Mexico take decades to recovery, if ever. New evidence shows that the BP oil spill has also dramatically increased the arsenic levels in the ocean, and those levels are continuing to rise. In other words, as arsenic levels rise sea life will die. Take out key points in the oceanic food web and you'll end up with basically no life left in the sea. Guess what happens to life on the land if life on the sea goes extinct.

4. Self aware AI in a military robot

The University of Adelaide in collaboration with robotics company Strategic Engineering have created the worlds first robot to be able to fully think for itself, as part of a US Military Super-Smart robots challenge. Funnily enough this AI's primary mission is to search, target, "neutralise" an enemy. It's weird, they create a self aware robot, then expect programming it to kill "the enemy" isn't going to backfire on us.

5. Plague Squirrel

A squirrel carrying the plague has been found at a camp in California causing the closure of the park for the next 10 days. Now two points to note here

(1) The fact the plague is back in town, the squirrel can't have picked up the plague from nowhere!

(2) How do you find out a random squirrel has the plague if a human doesn't first become infected? Seriously...

I'd say we need worry a LOT more about the potential for another pandemic of the plague then we do about the almost harmless swine flu.

6. Global insanity

Maybe it's just me, but it seems the world is becoming far more violent. Everyday the newspapers are filled with increasingly more seemingly random and pointless acts of violence. Children now days seem to think it's fun to gang up on a random person walking down the street and beat them within an inch of their life. There are 10 year olds in the UK whom KILL homeless point for kicks. Everywhere it seems, people who used to be normal are randomly becoming violent.

I don't know about you, but when I think about cars I can't help but associate them with noise, pollution and rising petrol prices. It's enough that some people have even gone to great lengths to convert their cars to & refine their own bio-diesel. Sure I suppose there is a certain charm and novelty to having your exhaust smell like burritos and French fries but (1) could you imagine the smell on large scale? Or the price of oil? and (2) They're still just as noisy and they're not 100% pollutant free either.

Toyota's Petrol/Electric Hybrid the "Prius" won over a lot of green inclined people searching for a cheaper and less polluting alternative. But the 'Prius' had the fundamental flaw of still running on petrol. Which means you have to pay for 2 fuel sources, plus it's still just as noisy when running on petrol AND it pollutes. Sure not as much as a fully petrol based car, but sustainability means cars can't pollute at all.

Enter Nissan whom have announced the December 2010 US release of their all electric car; the 'leaf'. Nissan are working with other industry players to roll out commercial recharging stations first in the USA and then across other countries around the world. These recharging stations will make owning a leaf viable, as you can always recharge on longer trips. For most people though, recharging will only need take place every 2 or so days as the leaf can get around 160km (100mi) from a single charge, and can even be recharged from home.

Recharging gives you 2 port options, a smaller port for recharging from home which will take 12 - 14hrs on 110v and 8hrs on 240v, so leaving the car plugged in over night to recharge while you sleep would be viable. The second larger plug is for the aforementioned commercial recharge stations which are predicted to take just 30 minutes to fully recharge the car from empty. Of course the question of what would one do during that time comes to mind, and is really the largest flaw I can see with the Leaf. However there is talk of installing the commercial recharge stations in parking garages for work places, shopping centres and so forth, so recharging could take place while you're at work or doing the groceries which sounds somewhat reasonable, although only really suited in that model to suburban & metro areas.

The Leaf also, like the Toyota 'Prius' gets some of it's charge back when braking or coasting & even includes a solar panel to give some extra recharge for FREE! I can see the solar panel coming in handy if you run out of charge in the middle of no where, think about it, wait a day and you're car will be fully charged and ready to drive again. The head lamps are LED powered giving both brighter lights and better power efficiency. But some of the coolest features are inside the car. The dash for example displays not only how much charge you have left but an estimate based on your own PERSONAL driving history in that car, as to how much further that charge will get you.

That's right, you read correctly, this car remembers your driving history and responds. It even has a novelty feature on the dash where you can earn 'trees' over time depending on how efficiently you drive the car. The inbuilt satnav also connects to the internet via a Nissan exclusive wireless service updating the GPS with real time information such as the location of your nearest recharging station, which when you're running low on charge the car will politely suggest you should visit. 6 speaker stereo allows cd/mp3 playback, has inbuilt bluetooth and has ipod/mp3 player connectivity. Under the hood, it even packs 100hp, 210ft.ibs torque!

But above ALL that, the most impressive thing about the Nissan Leaf is the obvious facts about the car. It doesn't directly pollute, being electric it's whisper quiet and it ultimately SHOULDN'T cost the earth to run. Being electric also there are a lot less parts, and a lot less of those parts move, meaning less ware & tare and fewer trips to the mechanic saving you even more cash. The Nissan Leaf, definitely worth looking out for through-out 2011.

With worse than poor ratings in the opinion polls for both Labor and Kevin Rudd himself, at 9am this morning an Australian Labor Party (ALP) ballot seen Kevin Rudd removed as leader of the party, and thus from the office of Prime Minister, replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard. While I greatly contest this motion as undemocratic on the grounds the Australian people weren't able to decide if Julia Gillard was fit to lead them; this is not the topic I will be discussing. Instead I want to discuss why nothing will change under her leadership.

The thing about Kevin Rudd's term as Prime Minister is that a great deal of it, perhaps even a majority there of, was spent outside of Australia visiting leaders of other nations, going to overseas meetings and so forth. As during this time he didn't actually achieve anything, nor really intended to do so, lets call it a tax-payer funded holiday. Now for this and countless other reasons I certainly feel that Kevin Rudd wasn't fit to lead this country and of course should have been voted out at the next election, but so should Gillard. The fact is that while Kevin Rudd was out of the country, the Prime Ministers duties fall to the deputy, which until 9am this morning was Julia Gillard.

In fact, it seems that most of the major Labor screw ups which occurred during Kevin Rudd's term as PM, such as the misappropriation of Stimulus package funds, the insulation scheme debacle and so forth, all originated while Kevin Rudd was out of the country. Or in other words, they happened under Julia Gillard's watch. And the stuff ups which have occurred in Public Education funding relate DIRECTLY to Julia Gillard and her department, as the minister for Education. The simple fact of the matter is Julia Gillard is a spineless buffoon, completely unfit to be a minister at all, let alone lead the country. During her term as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, she has been marred by countless screw-ups and debacles, it seems even the simplest of political tasks escapes Julia Gillard's abilities.

So with this change of leadership, and expected continued party infighting, don't expect change for the better. Expect more screw-ups and a complete lack of direction. That is the Julia Gillard that we have seen as Deputy Prime Minister, and the Julia Gillard we will see as Prime Minister. It has come to a point, where Labor are completely not to be trusted with anything. They can't even be trusted to leave the guy Australia voted for in office until the next election. We can't trust them on reform, we can't trust them on education or health, we can't trust them on the environment, we can't trust them on whaling, we can't trust them with the economy & Australian Jobs, we can't trust them with ANYTHING. When it comes to election time in March next year, if Australia is going to have a safe, democratic, prosperous future we MUST vote Labor out of office.

Links;

News Article

Freedom of Speech, it's something our constitution has never protected; but as Australians we have always enjoyed it for the most part, none the less until now. Both Federal and State Labour parties seem obsessed with censoring us at every turn. Of course internet censorship has drawn the most media and public attention as the federal government gear up to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to filter what we can and can't view on the internet. Internet Censorship is continued with the government considering laws which require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to log everything you do online and deliver those logs to the government on a quarterly basis.

But Labour censorship isn't confined to just the internet, and it's a growing problem which suggests Labour want us to "shut up" and "do as we're told" without question. Censorship of the media for example is becoming rife under Federal and State Labour; if the story is extra bad for Labour then there is an extraordinary chance you'll never know about it. It makes you wonder, will history will record this labour leadership as the gag order leadership? The whole thing is completely undemocratic, for to be a democracy the people first need their free voice making me wonder if perhaps Labour would be more at home under a tyrannical regime like China has in place. Or with the sale of so many public and private assets to China, perhaps they're just getting us ready for our "new masters".

Whatever the case the fact remains the newest censorship to be placed upon us by Labour comes at a Queensland state level, where premier Anna Bligh has given police new powers to give on the spot fines to anyone found to be Swearing in public amongst other offences such as urinating or "disorderly conduct". The on the spot fines will come into effect in 2011 and are definitely set to see tens of thousands stung. What's more if a cop isn't happy with you, there is always the danger s/he can slap you with such an offence even if you didn't commit it. Unless of cause there is a crowd of witnesses, how are you ever going to prove you didn't swear when it's your word verses that of a cop? It's dark days for Australia and it seems the only way this country can see the light again is to remove Labour from government in every section of government. There is a Federal Election this year, show Labour how democracy words, vote them out.

Links;

News Article

For the last few years Nintendo have had somewhat of a monopoly in the motion sensor category in the console market through the Nintendo Wii; not anymore. At 2009's E3 we were introduced to Microsofts controller-less controller code named project natal and man did it look good. Although in early development the demonstrations where awe inspiring and the trailer left my jaw on the floor. But in 2009 we were given no details, no release date, no idea of actual playable games, nothing.

But now, a year later our questions are answered; well at least some of them. Renamed Kinect the device is set to revolutionise the way we play games, make calls and interact with our console in general. No longer are we tethered to a controller, needing to learn button combinations and making the battery industry rich, for with kinect your body, arms, legs and voice are the controls and it works however you move your body. After loads of internet rumours about a potential Q4 release date, Microsoft has finally confirmed a November 2010 release and announced the first 8 games to be launched along side the controller. Games launching in November will be;

• Dance Central
• Kinectimals
• Kinect Sports
• Kinect Joy Ride
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved
• Kinect Adventures!
• Zumba Fitness
• Sonic Freeriders

And although I'm holding out to see the first shooters come to Kinect the launch line up looks creditable and definitely in the league to directly rival the wii with big names like fad sensation Zumba on board. That's right, no more trying to get the Sensor bar to pick up the Wii Controller, no more warnings about jumping on the Wii Balance board. With Kinect, go ahead and jump! Heck, kick, punch, dance, move however you see fit; it's all great with the Kinect.

But Kinect isn't just a game controller, it also enables you to make HD quality video calls from your TV when you have an Xbox Live Gold account. The camera in the Kinect automatically moves and traces you around the room, so you're always perfectly in frame, while multiple omni-directional microphones make sure everyone can be heard. Now it's possible for your whole family to keep in touch with grandparents, that nice family you met on holidays or whoever else, all on your TV! I'm sure more will be announced in the coming months, and I'll do my best to keep you up to date through this blog and twitter.

Links;

Official Kinect Website
Wikipedia Article
Project Natal YouTube Channel

It's always been my plan to establish a new federal political party comprising people from all walks of life (as opposed to the current major parties comprising the wealthy business elite) to truly represent Australians. It's always been the plan to bring back democracy and rid Australia of this elitist leadership whose interests lie with themselves. What wasn't planned was a decision I've made in the last week or so to attempt to run as an independent for the house of reps in this years election. I figure it will create awareness and give me some experience of the voting system from the candidate side.

Of course while I'd love to win and become the federal member for Oxley, and I would hope I would get a reasonable amount of support I don't expect that I will actually win. The primary function of running in this election is to gain experience so that the next election will run smoothly. But as I said, at this stage I'm only attempting to run, as I have a few discussions with the Australian Electoral Commission to have yet, so we'll see how it all turns out and I'll keep you updated. If I do get on the ballet and you live in the federal seat of Oxley, give democracy a kick in the pants and vote for me

Links;

Australian National Democratic Party (facebook fan page)

Russian politician Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claimed on April 26ths edition of a popular russian Tv show that he had been abducted by aliens in 1997. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been the serving president of Kalmykia for the past 17 years. Without any further proof, the interview has sparked concern in Russian parliament with Russian MP Andre Lebedev calling on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to conduct an inquiry into the claims with fears Kirsan Ilyumzhinov may have given away "state secrets" to his alien abductors.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claimed in his Channel One interview that he was falling asleep when he heard someone call him from the balcony. Upon investigating he supposedly found a "spaceship" which was a "half-transparent half tube". Somehow (he didn't explain how) Kirsan claims to have then entered the "spaceship" where he was greeted by "human-like creatures in yellow spacesuits". According to the eccentric politician the aliens then gave him a tour of their spaceship. When asked about communicating with them Kirsan stated "I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps, it was on a level of the exchange of ideas".

On a personal note, while I certainly believe in life on other planets. And could be persuaded to believe in extra-terrestrial life visiting our planet, I find Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's claims completely laughable. It is interesting that this supposed event took place whilst under his own admission he was falling asleep. I think it is far more likely that Mr Ilyumzhinov dreamed the whole event and none of it actually took place. I find it both highly amusing and concerning that Andre Lebedev is worried about aliens gaining state secrets without any actual proof beyond his own word, that aliens ever visited Mr Ilyumzhinov.

Links;

News.com.au
The Sun

I think we can all agree the environment is in an advanced state of disrepair; and likewise I'm sure most rational people can, irrelevant of cause conclude that our climate is changing. That the polar ice caps are disappearing, that permafrost is melting and global weather is acting at best a little bit odd.

WARNINGIf you're one of the minority of people whom still hasn't come to terms with these basic and observable occurrences then I'd say there isn't much point in you reading this post as you haven't caught up with everyone else yet. If you fall into this category I suggest you do a little research or even better go outside and see for yourself.

At this point for most rational thinking people, climate change has become a very real thing; the argument now seems to be centered around what is causing the problem, and how long is left before everything goes extremely pear shaped. To this argument I pose the following ideas which I hope might spur people to get passed arguing and into action.

(1) Science has been warning us about climate change since the mid-70s. That means we've had almost 40 years to argue, fuss and debate out the issue. 40 years is a long time for inaction, in fact its a longer time period than I am old! I find it sad that it's only really in the last 5 or so years, when the effects have become extremely apparent, that the mainstream and governments have actually started to take climate change seriously. I am concerned that it will take “doomsday”, when it's too late before everyone stops arguing about it and is prepared to actually take action.

(2) It seems to me that climate change has become the new religious debate, where people are more worried about the differences, rather than the commonalities. If a meteor was plummeting towards the earth, would we all sit around debating what caused the meteor to plummet toward the earth? Or would we simply trust the scientists whom specialise in the area and I don't know, at least do something, based on their advice to attempt to stop the meteor? I mean would we honestly sit around using the economy as an excuse as to why we can't act against the meteor? It seems to me that we have thousands of climatologists, geologists and other assorted specialising scientists whom are warning about climate change. Doesn't it make sense to listen to the people who go out and research these things, whose job is to know about this stuff? The same people whom warned us almost 40 years ago, that the stuff that is happening with the climate now would happen?

(3) To me, it makes absolute perfect sense to realise that look the climate is stuffed, there are some big changes happening that in all likelihood will effect the land masses (and thus all life upon those land masses, including humans) of this planet in multiple ways. And under such conditions we need to put our own insecurities and arguments to the side and look just do something to fix the problem. It seems insanely logical in such a situation to trust and look to the people for whom not only is it their job to know about this stuff, but whom have predicted, through science everything that has happened climate wise so far.

(4) Does action mean, in part, we need to do things that affect the economy in a negative way? Sure, but take the following into consideration. The economy will be negatively effected regardless of what we do. If we act against climate change with regard for this theory about solar flares, we still would need to take steps which will cost jobs and negatively impact the economy. If we act against climate change with the theory it's a natural process through which the earth is continually undergoing, guess what, still will cost jobs, still will negatively impact the economy. And if we do nothing, if we don't act, people are not only going to lose their jobs, but whole sections of countries (their homes) and even for some, their lives. How do you reckon that is going to impact the economy? We need to be sensible here, the economy is going to be negatively impacted, people are going to lose their jobs whatever we do. With that in mind doesn't it make sense it minimise the damage to both our economy and our planet?
(5) Ultimately what is the point in arguing about this? How does it benefit us in any way, shape or form? The global economy as we know it needs to collapse before we can rebuild it stronger and more environmentally friendly. Heck, even without climate change this needs to happen given currently we have a global economy running on oil, and we passed peak oil in 2005. Think about how much money could be made from a clean, and more importantly unlimited energy source? Particularly when the cost of producing the energy is a mere fraction of what energy costs to produce now. Think of how many jobs that single industry would create in maintenance, research and development, installation and infrastructure and so forth. Research and Development alone would be a massive employment sector for decades to come as we develop new and more efficient ways to extract neutral energy from our environment. Now thing of all the industries such a change would touch, and all the new industries that would spring up because of it. I guess what I'm essentially trying to say here is that in the long term tackling climate change could mean more jobs then we have in our economy now.

I would really like to hear a logical, well thought-out argument for inaction on climate change, so I'm throwing out the challenge, someone please, convince me why we should sit around with our thumbs up our butts from another decade while the planet crumbles around us. But if you're unable to meet the challenge, then you have no choice but to concede inaction is stupidity, arguing about this is stupidity and NOT listening to those whom have been warning about these events occurring for near on 40 years is stupidity.

Links;

ABC.com News

British pop singer M.I.A has sparked world wide criticism in the media over the video clip to her new song Born Free. The 9 minute video clip which depicts U.S authorities going house by house to round up all the red headed men for execution has even been banned on YouTube!

I'll be first to admit the video is over the top graphically violent, and honestly the song itself is none but a bunch of noise (maybe I'm just getting to old) but I don't think it deserves the sort of criticism it's getting if on the other hand we're going to say pop stars like Lady Gaga are allowed to have their extremely sexually explicit video clips and movies like Saw IV are allowed to exist. In fact if anything I'd have to say M.I.A's video clip is rather tame compared to any of the remade films Rob Zombie has done. And more over, M.I.A and ROMAIN GAVRAS were attempting to make a political statement with this video clip. Sure the clip does a clumsy job at making it's statement, but it quite clearly has hit people hard (otherwise it wouldn't have so much media attention) so one must assume it has at least partly fulfilled it's purpose.

Do I agree video clips like this should exist? No, of course not, but I disagree with video clips like those of Lady Gaga and movies like Rob Zombies remake of Halloween even more. None of this crap should exist, it's not art, it's not expressionism, it's not about complementing music or benefiting society. It's pornographic sexuality and violence for shear shock value and commercial gain. All of these types of videos should be banned, not just one video that has a bit of violence in it. I certainly don't think it's appropriate that I walk into a shop like Big-W and my children can see Lady Gaga half naked, dancing around like a whore on the LCD Tvs. We need to really take a long hard look in the mirror at the crap we're allowing Record companies to pump out and expose our children to.

Recycling, it's sold as one of the potential saviors of our planet. The idea of taking old things, reducing them to base resources and creating new products; sounds like a plausible solution in theory right? Wrong! Recycling doesn't make economic sense, nor does it make total environmental sense. But let me explain myself a little better.

Economically speaking manufacturers normally would pay for their raw materials. A drink bottle manufacturer for example would normally either pay per ton of plastic pellets or (if they process their own plastics) the going price per barrel of oil. Now throw recycling into the mix; suddenly the bottle manufacturer has a way of recovering their product without cost, then reworking it to produce a new bottle. Due it doesn't stop the need for raw materials, but that's down to lack of recycling volume, not concept. Essentially recycling means we, the consume provide to the manufacturer their raw materials, for FREE, which they then sell back to us. Can you name one other example of where a company is able to get product legally for free?

This I feel is the single biggest reason for lack of total adoption of the recycling schemes. If however the manufacturers were willing to pay for their product, that is to say they buy off of us the raw materials, this not only makes more economic sense, but would mean a greater take up of recycling. Think about it, if you knew your drink bottle, newspaper, catelogs, tin cans or other recyclables had a dollar value, you'd be more likely to recycle now wouldn't you? You'd also be less likely to litter. This simple change to the scheme would make a massive difference and would see landfill shrink dramatically.

Environmentally however, sure recycling cuts the amount of new raw materials needed, but it doesn't cut out the need for new raw materials all together. Even with 98% - 100% adoption of the recycling scheme we still need to use new raw materials in order to manufacturer recycable products; at best it slows the problem down it however solves nothings. Beyond that, recycling doesn't change the pollutants industral manufacturers produce; if anything it increases it. So on an environmental front, it only slows the consumption of new raw materials and does nothing to fix the problems caused by the manufacture process itself.

Recycling, a scheme that makes big claims, but makes no economic sense and little environmental sense.

Our video sharing website project that I announced last month is developing along nicely. The official launch date has now been set for May 15th 2010. The site is currently in beta trials so if you want to get in early and help test out the system just head on over to camzit.com and sign up. If you hurry and sign up for beta testing, you might even find you'll get a reward as a result.

Dear Senator Evans,

Can you please explain to me why it is that you are unable to grasp the issues around immigration, whilst the opposition shadow minister Scott Morrison has a great understanding of the issues? Can you please explain why the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that 300,000 immigrants lived in Australia for a period of 12 months or more during 2009, and how you, the relevant minister plan to reduce that number to a more manageable level?

Senator Evans, that figure might include international students here on temporary visas for a minimum of 12 months; but it is my understanding that those students still drink and use water while they are here, they still produce garbage, they still use our roads and public transport during there time in Australia and they still consume electricity. I do invite you to correct me if that understanding is in fact incorrect and they somehow manage to not do any of that during their time here, but I strongly doubt there is such a way.

In addition, it is my understanding Chris that these students also require housing from the general rentals market, and of course as they are students require a place at an approved learning institution, such as an accredited university. Again I invite you to make the same corrections of my grasp on the situation if I do indeed have it wrong. On the assumption however that the above statements are correct however (and I really don't see how they couldn't be) can you please explain why it is that you, as the relevant minister have set the immigration number so high?

As someone who lives in Queensland, were suspiciously the majority of immigrants seem to end up, I have seen a break down of basic and essential services in part as a direct result of immigration numbers being set above manageable levels. When a state starts running out of water, and begins water rationing, how does it make sense to dump tens of thousands more unskilled immigrants into that state? There is also a distinct housing shortage as a direct result of having to house all of these new immigrants, and Queensland is preparing for electricity rationing on top of water rationing.

Last I checked Senator Evans, the idea was to let in immigrants on the basis they would in some way improve our quality of life, whilst at the same time not taking away from it. I fail to see Chris how an immigration policy which both increases the number of immigrants allowed into the country whilst simultaneously directs focus AWAY from skilled immigration is in anyway beneficial to Australia. Sure we get an industry specific economic boom as a result of the international students, but at what price? Do you really feel the reduction in quality of life to your follow Australians is worth that industry specific economic boom?

As the Honorable Scott Morrison has pointed out, the idea of immigration is meant to be to supplement the natural increase in population, not override it. I would like to know what your thoughts are on these issues Senator Evans and what you plan to do about them.

So you went out and paid $800+ for your iPhone, or got jammed into a long term contract that sees you paying over $1000 for the device, you faithfully stood by Apple even though your iPod or iPhone exploded. Your even excitedly impatient for the release of the iPad near you so you can snap one up at $900, despite it's severe lack of features and general uselessness. You're a faithful Apple user, you buy apps by the dozen, you're addicted right?

You're even about to wet your pants over the release of the announced iOS 4.0 and the speculation over a new iPhone device. Well here is a feature in iOS 4.0 you may not have heard to much fan fare about, iAds. That's the name of course Apple have given to their new targeted advertising system, which will place targeted advertisements in your apps.

That's right you've paid for a device and an application that is going to spam the heck out of you every time you use it. I'm sure if you enjoy having ads all over the place this won't present the slightest problem to you, but for most people iAds might just be an iKiller. I mean we put up with the ads from Google, Facebook, myspace and the like because well, they're free services, ads are how they make their money. But apple make a hefty profit without ads, they're essentially asking you to pay for the privilege of being spammed. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced he plans to serve 1 BILLION ADS PER DAY

Sure you could just use the device in default and not download any extra apps, but seriously if you were going to do such a thing, why would you bother getting an iPhone or iPad? There are plenty of phones in the $100 - $200 range that have the same features as the iPhone minus the apps (Heck some even have the apps too now days).

So, why the sudden shift into advertising you might ask? Well firstly it isn't sudden, it's been planned for quite some time now. Apple plan to give 60% of the profits to the application developer and keep 40% to take care of the costs of serving those ads. It's a move that is meant to make iOS look like a more desirable platform to big name game and software developers, like Nintendo. Apple seems to think people will want to spend hours on end playing in-depth, graphic rich games on their iPhone or iPad as opposed to their Gaming Console or PC; I think Apple are a little delusional.

If Apple are so interested in gaming perhaps they should focus on making the MAC more gamer friendly, &/or developing a gaming console of their own. They sound like far more logical solutions to me, but of course in the world of Steve Jobs it's a better idea to attempt to get people to play games on a tiny screen (part of which will be taken up by ads while you're in the game) with poor user game controls. And of course the Telcos will love this idea, think about it. 17% of the mobile market in Australia owns an iPhone, each one being served data using ads, day and night! Oh yeah, get ready for your mobile bill to rise.

Which leaves just one question left, seriously, what is with Apple placing an 'i' before the name of every product they sell? Am I the only one who is getting annoyed at that? But I suppose if they insist on putting an 'i' before there advertising product, a more accurately descriptive name might have been "idontwantads".

Links;

iTWire Article
The Age Article
Nintendo USA President on Apple

Toward the end of 2009 and at the very beginning of 2010 I blogged about a growing trend of internet based advertising companies to invade out privacy in increasingly disturbing ways. I spoke about how Microsoft has teamed up with Facebook and Twitter to deliver automatic up-dates to the social web about what games, music and movies you were playing/watching, all of which information, used for profit by advertising companies like Facebook. It was at that time I predicted the next step in the line would be television, reporting back on the shows we watch, when and for how long, which would give invaluable information about our personalities, the make up and running of our households, our schedules, how much free time we have and so forth.

Guess what, I was right. Introducing the worlds first Android based television (Google TV) by Swedish firm "People of Lava". The television dubbed the "Scandinavia" is available in 42" 47" and 50" models, with both Ethernet and USB ports for connecting the TV to the internet and ships with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It plays TV like a normal TV, but it also has support for the millions of paid & free Android apps available, including an exclusive set of paid & free apps available only via the "People of Lava" web store. It ships standard with apps for YouTube, Google Maps, Email, the google browser (Chrome) and FACEBOOK AND TWITTER!

Now you can automatically stream directly into your Facebook or Twitter feed what you're doing on your TV, be it internet based, or TV watching. I told you it would happen, and it has. Just another action in your daily life that the big names in ads can take a peak at, giving a better more well rounded view of who you individually are. Some of you might remember I made several other predictions about the steps after Television in this invasion of privacy, perhaps now would be a good time to look back at those posts, don't you think?

Links;

People of Lava website
Scandinavia Google TV

Stephen Conroys great internet filter is clouted as the only of it's kind in the western world, and whilst that very well may be true (I'd like to hear from someone who knows), Australia isn't by any means the only country in the western world talking about censoring the internet. In fact, it seems we're a little late to the table with the U.S.A and Britain already censoring.

As free press reports, the fight for net neutrality is underway in the U.S.A with public figures on both sides of the debate. Interestingly however unlike in Australia where it is the government leading the charge on censorship through an ISP level filter, in the U.S.A it's the ISPs themselves who are leading the charge, with LIVE monitoring and blocking of undesirable content. That's right, for Americans their ISP is able to have a real live person look through your personal messages (including Instant Messaging and email), look at any websites you own &/or run, the people you communicate with, etc and determine whether action should be taken.

According to evidence given at the Federal Communications Commission by Michele Combs, American ISPs have been speed throttling and blocking content of political &/or social nature which the ISP itself doesn't approve of. For Americans there is no spin that it's "for the children" like it is here in Australia. There are no delusions about making a safer internet being propagated, nope it's just flat out social control and censorship by corporations held in broad daylight.

For the British it's worse, as ISPs have willingly teamed up with the Government to invade privacy and provide censorship. Calling no line ISPs will log every website, email, download and upload you make in a named account which is then passed to government. The ISPs are happy, they uses the data to better send you advertising, both through the browser and through email. In fact Britain has one of the highest rates of spam on the planet, and it's all down to this ISP level snooping.

The argument for a lot of people against the Australian filter seems to be that in other developed countries that filter internet, it is a voluntary system on behalf of the ISPs, but the fact is, in countries like the U.S.A and Britain these voluntary actions are being taken up by all the major ISPs in the market, giving the same blanket effect to the community that our Australian filter is meant to achieve through being mandatory. It seems in fact that ISPs and their corporate partners see the benefits to their organisation of such controls and censorship.

Imagine a world where no corporate entity, no government, no military, no public figure ever had to worry about a scandal or cover up story again? A world where if something, be it a download, a news article, a blog, a fan page on a social networking site, a video and any other material, was placed on the internet which exposed wrongful actions of a corporate entity, government, military or other public figure they could simply and explicitly block the content from being seen by anyone.

A world where the richest, most influential political parties are able to block out from national view, what opposing political parties have to say. A world where websites such as wiki-leaks can be blocked from view at an ISP level across the countries for which such websites are trying to expose wrong doings. A world where the giants of business can simply block out their competition, instead of having to beat them in the market place. That is the world we are fast moving toward. The days of freedom of speech and zero censorship on the internet are coming to an end.

So here is my prediction, one of two things will happen, either we will continue into this world of censorship, continuing to rely on and connect increasingly more of our lives to the internet, resulting in an incredibly ill informed, fascistly controlled community, bound into bondage and slavery to corporate brainwashing. OR, we as a people will decide that censorship and invasion of privacy is to high a price to pay for the "convenience" and "improvements in our lives" the internet has provided, and thus there will be a mass disconnect. Both of these options have their pros and their cons, so we as individuals, families and neighbourhoods need to decide which option best suits us.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has issued an alert for Australians to be on the look out for the following scams during the easter period.

(1) As there is often a lot of charitable work done during the easter period, scammers dress up and pretend to be accepting donations on behalf of charity groups or schools. The scammer(s) my work singularly or in groups and may approach you in the street, at your door or by telephone. Please be aware of this scam before you give to charity.

If you wish to give to charity it may be a good idea to call the charity directly and pledge your donation that way.

(2) Holiday & Accommodation scams happen most often during periods like easter. If you receive an unsolicited phone call or email offering you a discount holiday or accommodation this could be a scam. Do not give payment upfront to such persons and demand a contact phone number and address for the agent offering the holiday special. Hang up, search online to make sure they really are legit and if so call them back to confirm the holiday offer.

(3) If you get emails wish subject lines like "Your friend has sent you an easter card" this is probably a virus/trojan. If you open the email your computer will become infected. It's best to ask your friends to tell you before hand if they're going to send you an electronic greeting card over easter. If you get a card which no one has told you about, DO NOT OPEN IT, simply delete it. And of course as always make sure you computer has up-to-date anti-virus definitions and firewall protection.

This week there has been a bit of hoo-har in New South Wales state politics; with one politician turning anothers words into a declaration that women are responsible when they are raped. But the seat of the real argument is the over sexualisation of our youth and culture. A culture where young boys and girls are being taught to look at girls as objects only suitable for sexual pleasure.

While a certain state liberal MP seems incapable of understanding what youth of today are doing, the facts of reality are Rainbow parties (where all the girls take turns giving the boys headjobs leaving different coloured lipstick; like a rainbow) happen almost every weekend. Teen pregnancy is through the roof and still escalating, heck children as young at 10 YEARS OLD are having sex. Seriously! TEN! You can buy G-Strings (thong) for girls as young as TWO (2) YEARS OLD, and mini skirts from only a few months old.

Our children are not only becoming increasingly exposed to sex in the media, but they're becoming increasingly exposed to sexualised children in the media. Lets take Lady Gaga for example, the woman who started the media coverage of this political debate. Here you have a woman who is clearly high on drugs for most of her performances, whose lyrics would make a sailor blush and whose "dance moves" equate to little more than a stimulated lap dance. And yet we let 12 year old girls go to her show? I've seen girls as young as 6 listening to Lady Gaga.

But beyond that we have a systemic problem where sex is conveyed as love. While schools may teach the mechanics of sex to children, they are ill equipped to teach the emotions of it. Where as music and their video clips portray it as love, as the begin all and end all. Sure in a loving relationship sex is important to the longevity of said relationship as a bonding tool. But sex with some guy you've known a week and break up with 2 days later... not so much. And someone you just met, yeah sex isn't an expression of anything in that case, other then of course the fact you're easy.

But perhaps this is part of the point, women are becoming WAY to easy. Their sense of self respect and dignity out the window when their idols and role models are people like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. At what point did being a slut become cool? I know when I was a kid being a slut was a recipe to social suicide, now it's the complete opposite! And you only need go stand in front of a club on a Saturday night to see the over the top revealing clothes women are wearing now days.

So to answer the question, no women aren't responsible when they are raped, they're not asking for it. BUT that said, women who dress in a provocative way then go on to flirt and present as somewhat of a slut certainly aren't helping matters. In cases where women have dressed and acted in this manner and been raped; their presentation and actions did play a role. That of course isn't to say it is an excuse for the rapist or in any way taking any of the responsibility off the rapist. We all own our own actions, and at the end of the day, no means no. But you can't shake the fact that acting and dressing like a slut did play a role, however small, in the outcome. Even more so when alcohol is introduced into the equation.

Of course none of this is to suggest that I think we should strip sex from film and all women should dress in burkers. That would just be an over reaction; what I am saying though is young people need good role models. They need to be taught the emotions of sex AT HOME. We need to ban over sexualised video clips from TV screens at times our youth may be watching. We need to make it harder for our youth to get hold of these sorts of songs. And women of all ages need to re-equate themselves with self-respect and dignity.

I think honestly, a systemic lack of self-respect, dignity and self-esteem amongst our women is one of the leading causes towards male attitudes objectifying women. We need to teach our women and young girls that acting like a cheap hooker is not cool. Of course you can have sex (once you've reached maturity) with someone you're dating and want to continue dating. Of course I'm not saying you should only have sex after marriage. But honestly if you give it away on the first night, why should I bother seeing you again? Sex is not love and neither is spreading STDs.

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

High Tech Crime Operation acting national manager Karl Kent said

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

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

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

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

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iTWire Article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a decision each individual person in the Aboriginal community will need to make for them self. That instead of sitting around fighting to have more power and free money, put all that energy into bettering the country for ALL Australians not just a select minority. If we want to stop racism, then those who feel persecuted against have to stop making themselves out to be so different! Stop going on that you're black because the colour of your skin makes no difference to me, that you're aboriginal, that you need this special treatment or blah blah blah. Just get on with it and people will follow suit. Geez, common sense much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links;

iTWire Article

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

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

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

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

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

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

and continuing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links;

iTWire Article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links;

Jonathan Safron-foer's keynote @ Sixth & 1

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.

If you haven't already, I suggest you read the original post titled "Can it get anymore ridiculous" in order to understand the content of this post. As I said in that post, I did have a constructive post in mind but Sarah started hassling me about going to the shops so I lost my train of thought. This post attempts to pick up where I lost my train of thought in the original post.

I am all for healthy debate and alternate points of view, but only when the discussion and view is based on rational thought and evidence. When someone starts misleading the facts, and throwing all rational thought &/or ignoring all evidence which contradicts their argument, it ceases to be a healthy debate and turns more into the absurd. Ellery Schempp's article on Gravity is an example of such ludicrous positions of thought. Take one of the leading statements from the article

"First of all, no one has measured gravity for every atom and every star. It is simply a religious belief that it is “universal.”"

It would actually be near impossible to physically measure the gravity of every atom in existence or every star given the shear infinitesimal number of them. It's also important to point out that science takes into account the fact that not all objects have a gravitational field, or at least not one that counts for anything. You can demonstrate this if you for example pick up two pieces of metal, plastic, wood, etc and hold them near each other. Now let one go, notice how it falls to the ground? This is because the level of attraction between to two objects isn't high enough.

This however does not serve as any form of proof that gravity doesn't exist. Gravity is a measurable force of attraction, which can be clearly demonstrated if Ellery would simply jump out of a plane. Now if as Ellery likes to believe, we're all under "gods" control, then Ellery wouldn't plummet to his death. However, has we all know this simply isn't the case, and Ellery would, thankfully die, taking his nutty ideas along with him.

While the existence in some cases is assumed, there is much logic behind this. For example, the gravitational force of many stars has been measured, thus it is a logical assumption that gravity would in all likelihood exist for other stars. If it were proven that gravity didn't exist in some situations then the theory would be adapted to embed the new evidence. This unfortunately isn't something creationists seem capable of doing.

Never the less Ellery gets even more silly when he states

"Secondly, school textbooks routinely make false statements. For example, “the moon goes around the earth.” If the theory of gravity were true, it would show that the sun's gravitational force on the moon is much stronger than the earth's gravitational force on the moon, so the moon would go around the sun. Anybody can look up at night and see the obvious gaps in gravity theory."

Poor Ellery must have skipped class when his teacher explained the nature of gravity and planetary orbit. The moon of course revolves around the earth because it is closer and thus it's gravitational force is stronger. Think of it like this, if you take 3 magnets of increasing size. If you place the smallest magnet next to the middle sized magnet they'll attract. If you take the largest magnet and place it some distance away you'll have a small attraction between the large and middle sized magnets but the smallest magnet will continue to attract to the middle sized one.

The moon is caught by the earths gravitational field, and while the sun does affect on it (giving it a wobble) the strongest force is the closest one. I should also probably point out that the mass of the moon has an effect on the effects of gravity on it as well. You'd think that would be the end of the nonsense from Ellery and he'd start with some logical arguments, sadly this isn't the case. He now starts trying to use the tides to attempt to disprove gravity.

"The existence of tides is often taken as a proof of gravity, but this is logically flawed. Because if the moon's “gravity” were responsible for a bulge underneath it, then how can anyone explain a high tide on the opposite side of the earth at the same time? Anyone can observe that there are 2 -- not 1 -- high tides every day. It is far more likely that tides were given us by an Intelligent Creator long ago and they have been with us ever since. In any case, two high tides falsifies gravity."

Oh Ellery, I'm surprised you're able to count to two. I have to wonder if little Ellery ever passed high school, it certainly doesn't seem likely. It's true that most coastal areas experience two daily high and low tides. This is because when the water experiences the sub-lunar point (essentially it's "under" the moon) the gravitational force of the moon takes effect causing the water to rise. The high tide on the other side of the world is explained by a slight flex in the earth. That is to say, the water on the other side of the earth is effected by the moons gravitational attraction the less, while on the other hand, the earth itself is pulled closer to the moon. This gives the effect of the water "rising". Low tide occurs at the points in-between.

What is even more ludicrous though is that Ellery thinks that god explains tides better than gravity. At this point I must state that I actually have several Christian friends whom equally find Ellery's explanations a joke. They instead (and perhaps more logical for their motives) that god created gravity, and gravity influences tides. If there wasn't a mountain of evidence disproving god, that would actually be a believable theory, for from Ellery who makes no effort to explain how he thinks god influences tidal change.

Ellery then goes on to make a bunch more foolish comments which show how little about gravitational theory and the nature of the universe he actually understands, before bringing Thermodynamics into his argument.

"Furthermore, gravity theory suggests that the planets have been moving in orderly orbits for millions and millions of years, which wholly contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since everything in the Universe tends to disorder according to the 2nd Law, orderly orbits are impossible."

Now as the name suggests thermodynamics is to do with the movement of heat. That is to say, heat as opposed to gravity. And transversely to what Ellery thinks the Second law states it actually makes no mention of disorder or orbits. Instead the law says that any system (and we're talking about a system involving heat) not in equilibrium will increase over time approaching a maximum value which causes equilibrium. Another way to think of it is when you boil a pot of water, the temperature of the water increases until it reaches 100 degrees celsius then remains constant. Hopefully now you can understand now how VERY little this has to do with gravity.

Instead I think this was more an attempt by Ellery; thinking you wouldn't actually bother to research what the law actually states; to make his argument sound more plausible by bringing it laws and scientific sounding words. Or perhaps poor Ellery was so far off his understanding of science that he actually thought the two things are related. Remember, gravity is a force of attraction, thermodynamics is a set of laws to define the movement of heat.

From there it becomes so laughable as to not even bother reading. But if you insist on doing so I've provided a link below about gravitational theory which should explain the flaws in the rest of his argument. Now as I've already pointed out not all Christians think this way, but the morons who do, prove to be a source of great laughter. But then, all morons are such a source, and I must say I am truly thankful for them (morons) as they brighten every day of my life through their provided laughter. I still however fear for the sakes of these people, it seems unethical to leave them in such stupidity.

Links;

Original Post
Ellery Schempps article
Wikipedia on Tides
Wikipedia on Gravity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links;

ABC News Article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I recently stumbled across a website for a Christian organisation calling themselves "The Institute for Creation Research" (ICR) with their main goal apparently being to harmonise Science with the Bible. One would think then any serious attempt at such would be done by a team of fully qualified science majors specialising in a selection of fields such as variants of Biology, Geology and the sciences involved in genetics amongst others.

Logically speaking, one has to be able to understand the science before they attempt to harmonise with it, or indeed as the organisation seem to often do, refute it and so the aforementioned team would be necessary for serious conclusion. However; as is often the case with Christian websites refuting science; no such team exists at the "Institute of Creation Research" with their misunderstanding of DNA sequencing and even the roles of different chromosomes easily demonstrated in their front page article "Are Humans as Close to Chickens as They Are to Chimps" (the miscaps are theirs not mine).

The Article refers to the results of the comparison of Human Y Chromosomes with the Y Chromosomes in Chimps which were published in the biological journal "Nature". The original article in Nature speaks about how little knowledge of the Y Chromosomes evolution across species as full sequencing has only ever, until recently, been performed on Humans. The article then goes on to speak about how divergent the Y Chromosomes in Humans and Chimps are.

Showing their total and complete ignorance to genetics, the "Institute of Creation Research" then picked up the article in Nature and decided to run it's results as proof humans and chimps are unrelated and share no common ancestor. In fact the results actually prove nothing like that. In outright incomprehension they continued on to attempt to use this data to disprove the fact that Humans and Chimps hold 98% of their genome in common.

"Most of their findings do not fit well with the often-repeated erroneous statement that humans and chimps are 98 percent similar, nor with the more general hypothesis that they share a common ancestor. One sequence class within the chimpanzee Y chromosome had less than 10 percent similarity with the same class in the human Y chromosome, and vice versa. Another large class shared only half the similarities of the other species, and vice versa. And one whole class on the human Y chromosome “has no counterpart in the chimpanzee MSY [male-specific Y chromosome].”"

They couldn't have gotten it more wrong. Beyond the use of their continual phrase "vice versa" being redundant (It's like saying X and Y are different and so is Y and X different), they've also demonstrated thorough naivety towards how genetics works, how the 98% genome comparison between humans and chimps was achieved and the role the Y Chromosome plays.

So on the off chance someone from the ICR stumbles across this blog, and to better educate people before they read such crude pseudo-scientific articles I'll explain the situation a little better. The Y chromosome exists ONLY in males, meaning that females exist entirely without it, but funnily enough are still part of the same species. Meaning the Y chromosome is more about gender difference then it is about species difference. While they haven't yet been compared, I'm quite certain you'll see equivalent differences in the Y chromosomes of birds. It doesn't mean they don't hold a common ancestor, nor that they aren't all birds.

Furthermore, if you compare the human Y chromosome with that of another human, you'll find a large amount of differences just as you will with any other part of DNA sequencing. This is because of genetic variation, and so it isn't overly surprising to find differences between humans and chimps. What the scientists involved WHERE surprised at was there were more differences than they predicted. But as previously stated little is known about the evolution of the Y chromosome, it's an area for which this comparison is only the beginning of research.

But simply misjudging the number of differences is no more proof that humans and chimps are unrelated, than the countless misjudgements and mistakes made during the evolution of IVF proves it won't produce babies. Clearly IVF does produce babies, and clearly misjudgements in differences doesn't disprove theories nor do they disprove the FACT that humans and chimps share 98% of their genes in common.

To illustrate how completely out of context the ICR have taken comments made in the original Nature article check out these 2 sequential paragraphs taken from the "Institute of Creation Research" article

"The Nature paper expressed the mismatch between this data and standard evolutionary interpretations in a more muted tone: “Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.”1 Autosomes are the chromosomes other than the X and Y.

So, the human Y chromosome looks just as different from a chimp’s as the other human chromosomes do from a chicken’s. And to explain where all these differences between humans and chimps came from, believers in big-picture evolution are forced to invent stories of rapid wholesale rearrangements, and rapid generation of both new gene-containing and regulatory DNA."

The Nature article quote clearly is referring more towards the timeline difference, rather than actual similarities between humans and chickens. It's a quote that is clearly directed toward the surprise in difference between Y chromosomes and how long those changes were previously thought to have taken. But undoubtedly it's a quote that will go on to haunt science for years to come as creationists misunderstand the quote continually.

Ultimately anyone who can not conclusively see the similarities both in physical looks and behaviour modelling between humans and chimps is delusional. Evolution is a theory backed by insurmountable evidence, and while there may be surprises found during it's continued research, those surprises won't be such as to disprove the theory of evolution, which itself is still evolving as new research is preformed. If anything, all this new data about differences in human and chimp Y chromosomes proves is some timeline theories are off. To conclude anything more than that however is laughable.

Links;

ICR Article
Original Nature Article

The much anticipated apple iPad was announced yesterday as expected; and as I imagined isn't really what one would call a show stopper.

The iPad measures 9.5 x 7 inchs with basically all of that space constituting the touch screen. And while I praise apple for their continued green approach to new devices, I fear the aluminium frame may feel bulky, and the glass components make it easily broken. The first thing one notices when they look at the device is that it literally resembles a super-sized iPhone or iPod Touch, and you honestly aren't to far off.

The iPad is yet another apple device to lack a physical keyboard, with apple choosing to embed their proprietary virtual keyboard which has featured in their other touch devices instead. This indeed limits what can be done on the device as the user must type with the underwhelming virtual keyboard, causing most people to churn out numerous typos. With that said however, I suppose it's down to apples good thinking that they haven't marketed this product as a desktop replacement or office tool.

The iPad features a 1Ghz processor which, for a device of it's size leaves me entirely under-whelmed. Even my netbook which is 10.1 inch contains a 1.6Ghz atom processor. The large screen is somewhat obviously touch, allowing for the familiar navigation of the iPod Touch & iPhone. It's capable of playing ACC and mp3 music files as well as mp4 and mov video files. The iPad also contains the full safari web browser and email client, so it comes as no surprise I guess that apple are marketing it as best used for surfing the web.

While I have to credit apple with including an inbuilt microphone, I can't shake the feeling that they missed the boat completely by failing to include a web cam. With the virtual keyboard ruling out using the device for emails of great length or substance, and with the growing market for video calls I would have thought it a logical conclusion to add in a web cam.

So what CAN the iPad do? Well apart from surfing the internet, sending and receiving email, listening to music and watching videos the device is able to...wait for it...view photos! Beyond that you're able to download and use apps from the app store, and use the iPad as an ebook reader by downloading iBook and purchasing apple proprietary format ebooks. And that brings us to the extent of what the iPad can do.

To be honest I can't see a reason ANYONE would want one. With desktop and laptop computers taking care of your work/office needs and much of your home computing needs; with netbooks and laptops enabling mobile computing and smart phones taking care of the rest of your internet (including email) needs, where does the iPad fit in? That is to say, when you get down to it the iPad literally is just a giant iPod Touch. In fact, the iPod Touch is able to do some things that the iPad can't!

Can you really see yourself carrying something around the size of an A4 piece of paper in order to listen to music, watch movies and look at your photos when the smart phone in your pocket can do all that and more? And can you really honestly see yourself wondering around with an aggravating touch device trying to write emails on the go and surf the web when again, the phone in your pocket at a fraction of the size can do all that too? And lets face facts here; at $259 including free unlimited GSM data transfer to purchase and download ebooks, the amazon kindle is far better designed and priced if you're after an ebook reader.

The iPad has 3 storage choices; 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and comes in both a wifi stand alone and a 3G + wifi versions for surfing the web. And lets be real here, no one is going to want to be tied to a wifi network, so the 3G + wifi version is the only realistic option here. With the 16GB 3G+wifi model costing $629US and the 64GB model at $829 the iPad has priced itself out of the market. But I'm sure that apple will come up with some ingenious marketing ploy to suck people into buying this underdeveloped offering. Essentially however it comes to this, if you want to waste money, get no real benefit and look like a dork by all means rush out and by an iPad. However if your sensible, value your money and your self respect then give the iPad a wide berth and leave it to shrink into obscurity as another apple iFail device.

Links;

Technical Specifications
Pricing
Amazon Kindle