A number of people, including myself, had thought Conroy had wised up since his ill-thought strawman accusations in Parliament that those opposed to his internet censorship scam are paedophiles.

Not so.

From ITWire:

Q: Have you had any indication from Julia Gillard about how she would consider the opt-out or opt-in amendments to the filter that Senator Ludlum has put forward?

Conroy: We have an election commitment that we will deliver on.

Q: What’s your personal view of the opt-out and opt-in provisions that could be added to the filter legislation are they a possibility or a good idea or…

Conroy: I’m not into opting into child porn.

I reallllly want Conroy to tell me to my face that I’m a paedophile because I oppose secret, unappealable internet filtering and blacklists in a liberal democracy. Them’s fightin’ words, Senator. I’d coldcock him- and I don’t think any court would convict me.

Time to filter Conroy– right out of office.

-weez

WTF moment of the week in Australian politics:

All kids must read the Bible, federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says

BIBLE classes should be compulsory so children have a fundamental understanding of Christianity on leaving school, Tony Abbott says.

“I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation,” said the Federal Opposition leader.

“That includes, most importantly, the Bible.

“I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity.

“That doesn’t mean that people have to be believers.”

But former Howard government Islamic advisor Dr Ameer Ali, said Mr Abbott’s remarks were “over the top”.

“It’s one thing to say every child needs a good knowledge of history and geography or science,” Dr Ali said.

“But it is something else to say all children should have a knowledge of the Bible. That might hurt other people who have their own holy scriptures,” he said.

And the Australian Education Union’s federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said that religion was not a priority for schools.

“There is a place for comparative studies of religion in the curriculum, but ultimately we consider it a private matter for parents and their children,” he said.

Living proof that fucktardery never ends in the Lieberal Party.

Rave on, Tony-o. If Labor swapping leaders won’t win them the next election, your religionuttery will shoe them right on in.

-weez

How’s that pandering to the christians working out for ya?

-weez

Kevin’s stepped on his dick one too many times.

Rest assured, Julia will not make the same mistake.

Kevin would butter Tony’s crumpets after mass. When Rudd looks in the mirror, he sees Abbott.

On the other hand, Gillard is Abbott’s worst nightmare.

Bring on the ranga!

-weez

Bet you thought Rush Dimbulb couldn’t possibly sink lower.

You were wrong.

Yep, it’s Repuglican family values, touted by a fat bastard in his $450,000 German car.

-weez

If you advocate a certain school of thought, should you do so for the merits of those ideas alone- or to turn a buck?

Word to those who want to be taken seriously: Don’t be pendantic (and that’s not a typo).

-weez

I voted for the candidate, not the guy who won.

-weez

Phones running hot after radiation warnings

June 18, 2010 LOS ANGELES:

San Francisco is set to require mobile phone makers to warn customers that the gadgets are bathing them in radiation.

The city’s Board of Supervisors has approved the unprecedented law in a 10-to-1 vote, and it is expected to be signed by the mayor, Gavin Newsom, who has endorsed the measure.

The law requires makers of mobile phones to display in stores details of the levels of radiation emitted by different handsets in the same way that restaurants show the number of calories in food and drinks.

Failure to comply will incur a $US300 ($347) fine.

In particular, shoppers must be shown estimates of how much of the radio wave radiation from each mobile phone model is absorbed into the body of the person using it.

No credible study- not one– of has ever shown a link between non-ionising radiation and any health effect, positive or negative- ever. The only effect non-ionising radiation can have on living tissues is thermal, which is what you get from standing in front of a heater.

Mobile phones have a maximum output on the order of 600mW (0.6 watts), which cannot even be demonstrated to warm a mass the size of a human head in any significant amount. Makes one wonder why mobile phones have SAR figures at all.

Sure, a mobile phone might get warm during extended use, through power dissipation in the phone’s power amplifier or through the phone’s battery itself warming due to discharging through its own internal resistance, but all this will accomplish is warming the outer ear. Earmuffs will do the same thing. Should we issue dire warnings about the health effects of earmuffs?

Proper science never says something is fully possible or impossible. Good science classifies risk in terms of probability. Given the billions of mobile phones in service around the world and the utter lack of increases in brain cancers commensurate with those numbers, the probability of harm from a 600mW radio signal is similar to the risk of being attacked by a leopard in the average public toilet. Will San Francisco next mandate warnings of the possibility of leopard attack on every public toilet stall door? After all, one of these days, someone just might be mauled by a toilet leopard.

It seems to me that the magic buzzword ‘radiation’ is what gets people’s attention, despite the fact that not all ‘radiation’ is gamma rays, the real bad stuff that comes from radionuclear materials. Any ‘radiation’ which is below the frequency of UV light, that is, non-ionising radiation, is on balance of probability, harmless.

Dear Mayor Newsom and San Francisco Board of Supervisors, you’re all aflutter over nothing at all. There’s lots of real hazards in this world for people to be genuinely concerned about, why freak out over the imaginary ones?

-weez

Parental leave open to abortion rorts: Fielding

Senator Fielding raised concerns that some “drug addicts” or “welfare cheats” could deliberately fall pregnant, then have an abortion and rort the system

The paid parental leave legislation, which is being debated in the Senate, allows for women who have stillbirths to claim the payment.

During debate, Senator Fielding raised concerns that some “drug addicts” or “welfare cheats” could deliberately fall pregnant, then have an abortion after 20 weeks and rort the system in order to be eligible for payments.

“Drug addicts and welfare cheats can go out there and get themselves pregnant and then after 20 weeks have an abortion and still pocket the Government’s cash,” he said.

However, the Government says women who choose to have an abortion are not eligible for paid parental leave.

Attention Senator Fielding: A stillbirth is not an abortion.

Is it possible that he doesn’t know the difference? Given Fielding’s many other gobbets of gobsmacking buffoonery, I actually think it is.

I suppose if Steve-o wants something to bitch about, it is true that women who have had a stillbirth (not an abortion) are eligible for the baby bonus. Now that can’t be right, the danged woman hasn’t produced anything for society, why should she get paid, for heaven’s sake? Could it be that we just might have a shred of compassion in our benefits structure?

Fielding lives in a twisted, less-than-6000-year-old world where storks bring babies, global warming is a hoax, science is a conspiracy to fool him and internet censorship is a good idea, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too flabbergasted… but I am.

-weez

Ben Grubb breaks the story on ZDNet: Govt wants ISPs to record browsing history

Renai LeMay writes in Delimiter: Data retention policy “totally insane”, says Linton

…and Conroy has the brass fucking balls to accuse Google of privacy violations?

Gimme a break!

You can have my browsing history as soon as you can monitor what books I borrow from the library and can open all my snail mail.

Labor’s toast, even if we have to put up with the Mad Monk for a few years.

-weez