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There is a lot of pointless hoopla going on today about the Collingwood vs Geelong / Top of the AFL Ladder tonight – much of which is quite tiresome. However, I guess it would have been respectful of the Herald-Sun to have gotten Geelong’s colours right?
Don’t Geelong have DARK blue HORIZONTAL stripes, and not the lighter blue, vertical stripes shown on this graphic just snapped from their website? Oops! Fail!
UPDATE: Looks like it’s now been fixed!
In one of the biggest journalistic beat-ups / publicity stunts I have seen in a while, there is a growing perception online that in some way Julian Assange of Wikileaks has been made a “political prisoner” within Australia, after his passport was “confiscated” upon his recent ingress via Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport.
| Australian Wikileak Founder’s Passport Confiscated |
Some blogs are attacking this as some kind of heavy handed human rights violation. Huh?
| Australia Retaliates Against Wikileaks |
This is simply not true, because if you actually READ the first article, his passport was briefly taken from him because it was showing signs of excessive wear. This is normal practice, as passports that are apparently worn need to be properly inspected to ensure that the wear is not a result of tampering or forging, or that it will not be susceptible to such in the future. The article even states that his passport was returned to him “after about 15 minutes”. It also states quite clearly that “passports are routinely taken from travellers for short periods by immigration officials if they are damaged”.
Apparently he was told that “it was about to be cancelled”. Yes, absolutely – the current issue of his passport would be cancelled due to the passport being excessively worn. Again, standard procedure – all he has to do is have it re-issued. This makes him a political prisoner, does it?
Of course not – Assange is just taking the opportunity to blow the incident out of proportion for some cheap and easy publicity. Wikileaks is responsible for good work in many areas, but sometimes won’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
This seems to me like another such instance.
Was being all nostalgic on YouTube this morning, and was watching the film clip for Men At Work’s classic Australian hit, “Down Under”. Imagine my surprise when I saw Stephen Conroy in the film clip!
Perhaps his former life was as a dodgy salesman? Oh wait, that’s his current life!
Some manufacturers GPS devices let you add custom voices to direct you to where you are going. TomTom has released a range of Star Wars voices for their devices. Here is Darth Vader during his recording session.
Very clever piece of marketing!
With Kevin Rudd sliding badly in the polls, some pundits are suggesting Julia Gillard might take over the reigns before the election.
I don’t think that will happen, but if this snap from an ABC News update last night is any guide, Kevin Rudd might be trying on her heels already for a positional swap?
Probably not.
There’s been much ado on the interwebs over the last couple of weeks about what many see as a “victory” against the mandatory filtering of the internet in Australia, with many people misinterpreting the “shelving” of the policy by Senator Conroy and/or Prime Minister Rudd as being the end of the policy forever. Alas, this is not the case.
| Rudd Retreats on Passing Web Filter Legislation |
The main culprit here is Wikileaks, who badly re-titled the above article to “Australian Government Drops Internet Censorship Proposal” – and it spread like wildfire online through channels such as Twitter. Their re-titling of the article was a monumental screwup on their part, that overly excited many a casual observer of this debate.
One must remember that Wikileaks is both a foreign “organisation”, and already an enemy of the Australian government for their leaking of the ACMA blacklist. A blacklist that purportedly contains material from Wikileaks. Wikileaks has a defined bug to bear with this policy.
As much as their support is appreciated, this does not directly effect them – as they are foreign, the Australian government has no jurisdiction for the removal of any material in their name. The Australian government actually has at this time no jurisdiction against them inside of Australia either, because the filter is currently not in place to block their material within Australia.
This debate should be primarily a debate for Australians and Australian interests – not foreign entities. The filter would certainly bring foreign implications upon Australia, but that is a second level argument.
The Wikileaks response is probably welcomed by the government as it further clouds the waters, however this event has highlighted a perfect opportunity for supporters of the defeat of this legislation. It is time to draw a line in the sand.
The reality is that the Rudd Government has “shelved” this policy in time for the upcoming federal election. There is so much opposition to the plan, that they have correctly identified it as a vote-loser. This means several different things:
Yes, the policy is “shelved” for the moment – a clearing the deck of controversial policies in time for an election. The plethora of recent policy backflips will probably see the election pushed out as far as possible, to give them time to try and repair what damage has already been done.
While this all looks damaging for the government – and it is – it is certainly not time for anti-filter campaigners to celebrate. It is not a time to even back off and take a breath.
If the government want to hide this policy in the shadows, in search of another way to get it passed both houses of parliament, it is time for us to drag it back into the light. If they want to hide it to save face, we need to keep throwing it out there so more and more egg is deposited on their faces.
We do not need to compare Australia to China or Iran, or any other country with internet filtering policies in place. We are not China, we are not Iran. Dragging their highly political censorship regimes into the debate over our proposed filter is pointless. It has nothing to do with it, and we do ourselves an injustice by making direct comparisons.
They are valuable examples of how a regime based around censorship can operate, but we can’t let those examples drive our debate. We need to win broad support and respect for our stance – and you do not win respect by being disrespectful.
Many use colourful name calling and curse words believing that will help. All it does is make this campaign look like a bunch of childish little brats complaining about the loss of their porn. That’s what the government really wants us to look like, so cut it out – do not play into their hands.
Do not let them sweep it under the carpet so people think it is off the agenda. It is not off the agenda, and this needs to be made a REAL election issue. For all our sakes.
Well, Jeff Kennett is flapping his gums once again, and is displaying his carefully convenient memory – especially when it comes to the defection of former Hawthorn CEO Ian Robson to Essendon.
| Kennett Says Robson ‘Wasn’t Totally Focused on Doing His Job’ |
In today’s media, Kennett states that:
Ian came to me at the beginning of the year last year and said that he and his wife had decided they’d like to renew their contract at Hawthorn, but if the top job in the AFL or Cricket Australia came up, he’d like to pursue it with my support.
Yet today, with the Hawks reeling with only a single win so far for the season, he has a slightly different “memory” in effect!
| Essendon Poaches Hawthorn’s Ian Robson |
Ian has completed five years at Hawthorn and had indicated at the beginning of the year that he was looking at other employment opportunities. So that this decision is not unexpected.
So what is it Jeff – did he tell you he wanted to stay at Hawthorn, or that he didn’t want to stay at Hawthorn? He certainly didn’t end up at the AFL or Cricket Australia! You even claimed today that you weren’t going to renew his contract anyway.
So what’s the problem?
Sounds to me like Jeff is back to his political roots – the headlines are bad – (bad performance by the Hawks) – so lets change the subject?
Footy fans are not that stupid Jeff!
Courtesy of a Facebook share from Jason Calacanis, comes the “Only in America Stop Sign”.
Any comment would be superfluous!
A few weeks back, I posted a video of Neil Crompton having a go in Mark Winterbottom’s FPR Falcon at the Clipsal 500. These little segments by the Channel Seven commentators are for use in the coverage of the 2010 V8 Supercar season.
Last weekend it was Mark Larkham’s turn in Greg Murphy’s PMM Commodore at Queensland Raceway.
Clearly a lot more rusty than Crompton was, but still a great package worth looking at.
A lot of people are celebrating the supposed “retreat” by Kevin Rudd in regards to the mandatory ISP filtering, as reported in the media this morning. Hold the champagne folks – there is a lot more to this than you might think – this is a political ploy.
There are two realistic ways the government might try and get this hotly contested piece of legislation through our federal parliament.
Firstly, they can put it to the lower house, and seek its passage to the senate. Since the government (obviously) holds a large majority in the lower house, this would be a given. After the legislation is read in the senate, the government needs to use its own numbers in the senate – (with which it does not hold a majority) – plus get enough independent and minor party senators to side with them, to get it through the senate and into law.
Secondly, they could wait until after the next election – expected around November this year – and hope that they are returned to government in the lower house, and have better senate numbers to pass the legislation without the help of the independents and minor parties.
Given that they have chosen to put the legislation on hold until after the next election, they are tacitly admitting that they do not have the support of the independents and minor parties in the current senate to get this legislation through the easiest way.
A “double-dissolultion” of parliament – such as that which led to the fall of the Whitlam government in 1975 – is not an option, as this is not supply bill.
The bottom line is although this could be classed as a minor victory – (and it probably is) – there is no real cause for celebration. Not yet.
This postponement of the legislation give us a chance to campaign ahead of the next election to either remove the Rudd government at the lower house level, or ensure that they do not gain a majority share of the senate to be able to simply pass it through on party lines.
So, now it is time to leverage this new position, and campaign even harder to make sure this draconian piece of rubbish never makes it into our statutes.