-weez

Dick Cheney appeared at President Obama’s inauguration in a wheelchair.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino says that the former President of Vice pulled a muscle in his back moving boxes while clearing out of the VP’s residence.

Now, here’s a multimillionaire who has had four heart attacks- do you think he’s moving boxes anywhere? I sure don’t. I think this is the beginning of a Pinochet-style sympathy campaign, intended to keep the 68-year-old son-of-a-bitch from ever standing trial for torturing prisoners of war.

Keith Olbermann describes why Bush, Cheney and others must be tried for war crimes:

Don Rumsfeld barely escaped France in October 2007, where he could have been arrested for war crimes. The former King and his Executioner have the same sort of fun to look forward to when travelling- for the rest of their miserable lives.

Welcome back to reality, gents.

-weez

Barack Hussein Obama has been inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, ending the darkest eight years in American history.

I have deliberately avoided traveling to my mother country in these last eight years, primarily because the former king president famously broke the promise he made on his illbegotten inaugurations, specifically the promise to uphold and defend the Constitution. The golden document which makes the United States what it is, that parchment which has been replicated and emulated by new nations the world over for the last 233 years, was not just ignored but openly defied and defiled by the former wannabe king. I could not rest assured that my rights as enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be protected were I to chance to travel to my mother country.

I’m looking forward, finally, to coming to visit my family in the USA- hopefully soon.

-weez

While we’re on the topic of painful ignorance, I note that some folks have managed to make a cottage industry out of professionalised stupidity and purveying complete and utter nonsense as medical advice.

Lyn McLean calls herself the director of pseudoscience promoting ‘EMR Australia.’ She is the very same Lyn McLean, who via her ‘Energy Connections‘ website, offers:

* dowsing classes and tools
* energy assessments of home and work
* theta healing
* workshops
* talks for groups
* handmade jewellery

Yes, Ms McLean wants to take your money for teaching you ‘dowsing‘ and for jewellery made with chunks of glass which are apparently supposed to heal your ‘thetas.’ I frankly wasn’t aware I had any thetas. Readers, please turn me on to the anatomy lessons I have quite clearly missed…

The selfsame Ms McLean is offering up herself as an expert on the supposed hazards of electromagnetic signals. McLean can’t grasp the fact that her ‘complimentary medicine’ is complete silliness, so she’s branched out into offering technical information on the supposed health damage from radio signals- and is making a buck off it, to boot. I’d like to see McLean’s medical and electronics engineering qualifications. I’ll put my BSEE up against her wives’ tales and conspiracy theories any day of the week.

If McLean’s information on the health effects of radio transmissions is anywhere near as good as her other wives’ tales, I’d sooner take medical advice from Tom Cruise.

Ms McLean is completely within her rights to privately believe any absurd nonsense she likes. If she feels all good and gooey inside when she hangs bits of glass off assorted parts of her person, more power to her.

Where she gets my back up is when she offers bullshit up to community groups as valid and viable factual objections to provision of adequate mobile telephone services in the Blue Mountains, an area where the lack of effective communications can be lethal to the general public. Ms McLean’s crazy guesses and crystal-gazing suppositions should not, under any circumstances, be allowed to compromise public safety.

Dowsing! Kid you not.

-weez

I live in the incredibly beautiful Blue Mountains, around 100km west of the Sydney CBD. Get a look at the area in Google Maps. Sydney’s sprawl stops dead, right at the Nepean River. Place names in the Blue Mountains National Park, such as ‘The Devil’s Wilderness‘ and ‘The Blue Labyrinth‘ ought to give anyone with some commonsense a fairly big clue as to just how rough and rugged the undeveloped, virgin bushland in the Blue Mountains really is, despite its proximity to a city of over 4 million people. This undisturbed nature makes it a massive attraction to international visitors and domestic tourists alike.

Because of the Blue Mountains’ deceptively close proximity to civilisation, many tourists are blithely unaware of the dangers caused by general inaccessibility to most places where they go exploring. I’m not talking about simply 4WD accessible places, I’m talking about those where the only motorised transport going in or out are helicopters. About 10 people die each year abseiling or bushwalking in the Blue Mountains. Many more survivors are winched out by rescue helicopters. This is of course after emergency services actually locate the distressed hikers. Rescue helicopters flying at low altitude mark our seasons- on summery days and holiday weekends, they’re like mosquitoes around here. Well, it’s summertime again… and more tourists are lost in the Blue Mountains.

While a few well-prepared tourists carry water, maps, GPS units, general survival gear and other supplies with them, many don’t. Why would you, when you’re so close to a city of 4 million? About the only thing classifiable as survival equipment which most tourists carry is a mobile phone. However, the vast majority of the Blue Mountains area, aside from a ribbon of villages alongside the Great Western Highway, has poor or no mobile phone coverage. Coverage even along the well-travelled GWH corridor is dodgy in many places. Even at my house, in the populated corridor, about half our mobile calls drop out.

Despite this potentially lethal tourist trap, some underinformed and unnecessarily fearful Blue Mountains residents actively oppose the expansion and improvement of mobile phone base station coverage along the GWH corridor, on the basis that mobile phone towers are rumoured to pose a danger to human health. These beliefs are based in ignorant suppositions and cherry-picked pseudoscience. The fact that no deleterious effect on human health from base stations (or the mobile phones themselves) has ever been identified or proven means nothing to those purveyors of fear, uncertainty and doubt. (more…)

For those four Australian internet users who are not up to speed on Rudd’s plan to enforce mandatory content filtering, let’s recap:

* During the HoWARd regime, ‘NetAlert’ filtering software, for installation on the PCs of residences with children, is offered at no cost to users. Millions are spent, yet the takeup rate was almost nil. It’s obvious that few users want it.

* Prior to the 2007 Federal elections, Labor proposed an optional filtered ‘clean feed’ as an election promise.

* Almost a year into the Rudd government, the goal posts got moved- suddenly, the filter is no longer optional. All internet feeds are to be subject to mandatory filtering at the ISP level. There will be an optional, stricter ‘child’ level filter for those subscribers who wish to opt in. Peter Garrett’s comment that once elected, Labor would ‘change everything‘ was beyond prescient.

* The Australian government blacklist is to be kept secret from users. We don’t even know what will be blocked. However, the blacklist will have to be made available to all Australian ISPs. The chance of the blacklist being leaked is not as much ‘high,’ as ‘absolutely certain.’ Witness the leaking of the banlists of Denmark (blocks a lot of ordinary porn sites which market images of 25 year old women in pigtails as ‘teens’) and Thailand, which criminalises criticism of the Thai monarchy.

* Closed-circuit test results of Labor’s proposed filter are leaked to the media. The most effective filter, the one which stopped the greatest amount of ‘objectionable’ traffic while falsely blocking the fewest number of unobjectionable sites, is found to slow access times by up to 87%.

* Goal post shift #2: Senator Conroy is flummoxed by critics who claim that Labor’s filtering scheme will only address HTTP traffic, not P2P file sharing, the mode via which the vast majority of child porn material is trafficked, per Australian law enforcement. Conroy, not given to explaining himself, pipes up and claims that Labor’s filter will in fact block ‘objectionable’ P2P traffic. Conroy gives no explanation as to the technical means by which this will be done, despite most P2P users encrypting all traffic by default.

* Conroy has also not addressed the matter of filtering encrypted traffic, either via HTTPS or P2P. If you’re going to filter traffic against a blacklist, you have to know what’s in the packets you’re filtering. Any effective filter will have to be able to decrypt such secure traffic on the fly (which not even the US CIA nor NSA can do, given the ready availability of strong encryption). To any system monitoring internet traffic, all encrypted packets look the same- unreadable. If a filtering system somehow is developed which can decrypt and filter encrypted traffic, it will render legitimately private encrypted traffic, such as internet banking and online purchases, as public as plaintext. So far, Australian banks have not addressed this matter with their online customers, claiming that the filter has not yet been implemented and thus they have nothing to say on the issue.

Enter Mark Newton. (more…)

If you ever get to be a politician, you’ll find there’s more than a few paths to epic failure. Somewhere at the top of the list would have to be public hypocrisy and being self-serving to the point of corruption. The Right Rev Freddy Nile has pulled a few boners in his time (largely without help, I suspect), but this would have to be the mother of all his fuckups.

In the SMH today:

Topless ban to protect Muslims and Asians: Nile

Georgina Robinson
December 30, 2008 – 1:27PM

Conservative MP Fred Nile says he wants topless bathing banned in NSW to protect Sydney’s Muslim and Asian communities.

The Reverend Nile has rejected allegations that prudishness is behind a bill he has prepared to ban nudity, including topless sunbathing, on the state’s most popular beaches.

Australia’s reputation as a conservative but culturally inclusive sociery was at risk of erosion by more liberal overseas visitors, he said.

“Our beaches should be a place where no one is offended, whether it’s their religious or cultural views,” he said.

“If they’ve come from a Middle Eastern or Asian country where women never go topless – in fact they usually wear a lot of clothing – I think it’s important to respect all the different cultures that make up Australia.”[…]

But it was a very different sensibility being protected by The Rev in the SMH a year ago…

Nile party behind anti-Muslim school rally

Wendy Frew Urban Affairs Editor
December 22, 2007

THE Christian Democratic Party is behind a mysterious group called the Committee for Public Affairs Education that organised a large meeting this week to protest against a proposed 1200-student Muslim school in Camden.

In the guise of a local residents’ action group, the CDP organised the meeting, which has been accused of inflaming anti-Muslim feeling.

The CDP leader, the Reverend Fred Nile, and Robert Balzola, a Christian lawyer and lobbyist, were key speakers on the night.

Police had to calm about 100 people outside Camden Civic Centre who could not get into the packed hall, some of whom issued threats against people of Muslim heritage.

Mr Nile told the crowd he opposed the school because Islam opposed Christianity. […]

Well played, Rev. 🙄

It does disturb me that Freddo thinks our memories are so short. The Rev’s attempt to blame the sensibilities of Muslims for his complaint is a flat-out stand-up howler.

However, seeing as how the vast majority of Australians couldn’t give a shit about religion, about all Fred’s going to get out of this is a bit more laughter and derision than usual. Mind, if Amy Winehouse starts hanging out her baps at Bondi, my opinion might change… but regardless, free-range boobies will still roam Aussie beaches, no matter what Nile, Muslims or I might think.

-weez

The democratisation of information via the net is something that governments must surely regret.

dodge, waffle & weave before composting

Internet users are much more informed than the nonwired. Political campaigns are much more effective when organisers and rank and file are connected. Connectivity helped get Kevin07 over the line and was pivotal in Obama’s landslide. That same wired power can turn and bite, too.

Genie’s out of the bottle, guv. Mandatory filtering, even if it could be utterly transparent to 99.44% of users, is repugnant to the free exchange of information as now exists.

Labor will implement Conroy’s deeply flawed and wildly unpopular scheme at their political peril. We’re now talking about votes in significant numbers, not just a few indignant cyber-liberties activists.

While at the Beijing Olympics, Rudd berated China for their draconian internet censorship. However, if this half-baked, easily circumventable mandatory filtering scheme goes ahead, Australia will have exactly the same thing, making right fools of us on the international stage. Says JOLT, the Harvard Journal of Science and Technology:

By enacting such far-reaching, mandatory Internet censorship, Australia joins more repressive governments including those in China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. China is by far the biggest offender when it comes to Internet censorship – the nation’s Internet filtration policy is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world.

Don’t fuck it up, Kevin.

-weez

Conroy is really beginning to test the patience of Australian internet users. Today he’s threatened that the mandatory internet filtering scheme will extend to P2P file sharing.

My previous offer to cough up fifty bucks if I can’t beat the filtering in under 1 minute (plus 52.2 seconds for the 87% speed reduction) not only still stands…

… but I’ll make it a hundred if the Conjob filter can stop or even slow encrypted P2P traffic.

The good Senator’s problem is that he knows sweet FA about computers and networking. His filter will only affect those incapable of finding a workaround, which is approximately nobody with an IQ above room temperature in Celsius.

I’ve received Conroy’s four page proforma response to complainants regarding the filtering scam. Scanned and posted here, PDF format.

Conroy has signed us up to use the UK based ‘Internet Watch Foundation’ (IWF) banlist. IWF are the mob who banned access for UK users to a controversial Wikipedia entry last week but then backed down at approximately Mach III. Bear in mind that under UK law, Bill Henson’s photos would have attracted a ban, while they were rated PG in Australia.

*sigh*

Bill of Rights, anyone?

-weez

Internet censorship in Australia is definitely all inclusive.

Here’s a scan of a fresh, crisp $50 note, courtesy of the gubmint’s $1400 economic stimulus bonus to disabled pensioners, of which I’m one, thanks to complications of injuries sustained by being dashed off a motorbike by a stupidly drunk woman who ran a red light in front of me.

Prime Minister Kevin ‘holy crap, the banks are about to crash on my watch’ Rudd will be happy to know I’m TRYING to spend this pineapple, though I haven’t yet, doubtless assuring the death of all Aussie businesses until I do.

Senator Stephen ‘we’re the gubmint, we can do anything we want, whether it’s technically possible or not’ (a.k.a. ‘Dodger‘) Conroy and Family First’s Senator Steve ‘unrepresentative swill‘ Fielding- go ahead, ban a porny website– or any website. Let me know the URL you’ve banned. If I can’t show you the contents of that site in under 1 minute (plus 87% gubmint filter-induced lag time), this $50 is yours. If I can show you said banned website contents, you cats get to give me one of your ‘stimulus’ fifties.

Senator Nick ‘No Pokies‘ Xenophon will be brassed off about me promoting gambling on the internet.

Senator Bob ‘fruit with wild hickory nuts by vegetable-fat candlelight’ Brown will be miffed that I’m thoughtlessly attempting to circulate a currency note, which in Australia are made from plastic, ultimately sourced from crude oil and printed on coal-fired electricity powered lithograph presses.

Any number of pensioner and welfare-recipient-hating far-right loonbags will demand that I have no business gambling with my pension payment, which I shouldn’t have anyway, in their minds. I’m apparently supposed to have dropped dead when I lost the ability to work. I’m working on dropping dead, but the way things are going, with my moderate weight, absence of alcohol consumption and good diet, much from my low-food-miles backyard veggie patch,  I expect I’ll be a burden on society for another 40-50 years or so.

So, you pair of Steves- show me the freakin’ money– and let’s get busy quibbling about whose political priorites will trump whose when Conroy gets his mandatory filtering in place.

-weez