Ahead of the NSW State election, both leaders are fronting a panel convened by the Australian Christian Lobby. Would they feel obliged to front a meeting convened by a lobby of ethicists or scientists, or atheists (or muslims or jews – yeah, probably that one ) Of course, one of the topics to be discussed is the ethics classes. The… Read more →
A cute Stephen Conroy comic.
The outrage is manufactured. PZ Meyers has pointed to a quite articulate response to the outrage over the leaked emails. There’s no outrage like republican outrage, and Rush Limbaugh is particularly repulsive. Still, if you can control your gag reflex, I highly recommend watching this.
The Mad Monk is now opposition leader. A worse outcome for Australian politics, I can’t imagine at the moment. The dark horse (fifth member of the riders of the apocalypse?) actually even beat Hockey in a three-way contest (Abbott 35, Turnbull 26, Hockey 23). I guess the Liberal Party doesn’t believe in conscience votes (as Hockey was advocating), let alone… Read more →
Not when they actively threaten to withdraw social programs when they realise that they might have to abide by anti-discrimination laws. Of course, this comes on top of the devastating debate on the BBC, in response to which the Scottish Catholics had their own tame debate which they naturally declared they won. Of course, their poll on the topic was… Read more →
Carl Scully, the ex NSW roads minister, has a piece in the SMH today in which he tries to blame cyclists for his mistakes. He claims that we’re second class citizens who shouldn’t be on the roads and who don’t pay for our use of the roads anyway. The comments have it right in calling him on his bullshit; it’s… Read more →
Paul Sheehan has an article in today’s SMH that asserts that Islamophobia is a fabrication, in response to an approach from a graduate student doing a thesis on the topic. In a statement of the bleedingly obvious, Paul states that Islamophobia is a fear of Islam, or a fear of Muslims, and he states that the “prevailing orthodoxy” – some… Read more →
It doesn’t take much more than a bicycle pump, a bucket, a cooker range hood. Oh, and some uranium. Here’s how. As the instructions say, Making and owning an H-bomb is the kind of challenge real Americans seek. Who wants to be a passive victim of nuclear war when, with a little effort, you can be an active participant. Apparently… Read more →
While Wilson Tuckey and other conservative voices played politics by claiming that the policy of assuaging greens played a part in making bushfires worse (arguable), Christians seem to be sure that policies on abortion are to blame! Here’s an extract from a media release from an evangelical christian mob called Catch The Fire: CTFM leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah said he… Read more →
An article in the Times Online reports that some towns in Italy, which are governed by racist political groups, have banned “foreign food” – as if tomatoes and pasta were originally native of Italy! The whole article is full of fail, such as the following: Mr Zaia said that those ethnic restaurants allowed to operate “whether they serve kebabs, sushi… Read more →
Last night, I watched Tsipi Livni explaining to an ABC correspondent that Israel would not show restraint in pursuit of Hamas. I was hoping for Matt Brown to seek elucidation – does that mean that the deaths of all Palestinian civilians would not serve as a restraint on Israel’s actions? the deaths of all Egyptian civilians near the border as… Read more →
It was a stock “don’t worry – we’re politicians” letter. Download it here. However it takes the reader for a fool and depends on an uncritical eye being cast over it. Here’s my response. Conroy, you’re a liar. Your propaganda PDF states that the UK, Finland, Sweden and Norway have adopted filtering technology without any impact on performance. This is… Read more →
Jon Seymour, in a guest post on the blog Somebody think of the Children, talks about what he feels is the real purpose for the proposal of a mandatory internet filter: it’s to impose a middle-class sensibility on society; to take us back to an era when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned, where certain things were not said and done… Read more →
The Conroy Rule is a fast-spreading internet meme, similar to Godwin’s Law (well at least similar to the bastardised form of it that I have seen called Reductio ad Hitlerium, and which is also known as Dodd’s Corollary). It basically says that any argument from a politician discussing the internet devolves into simplistic references to child pornography, which in-effect makes… Read more →
Mark Newton, who works for Internode, is one of the main spokesmen (in an unofficial capacity) against the Federal government’s proposal to setup up ISP-level filtering on the Australian internet. The title of this post is a quote from an opinion piece on the ABC’s website, where he rightly takes Senator Conroy and the Australian Families Association to task for… Read more →
We all know media and politics engender mass hypocrisy. We probably expect it and therefore put up with more than we should. Once again, it’s the razor sharp mind of humorists that are good for exposing this. John Stewart is one of the best in this area, and he’s come up with a piece of reporting that needs to be… Read more →
The Australian has published an article based on the press release from SAGE-AU: Over-blocking access to Internet sites even three percent of the time will impose “significant†costs on service providers, the System Administrators Guild of Australia”(SAGE-AU) has warned. Unfortunately they don’t publish a link to the actual release, which mentions more issues like deployment costs, and security concerns. It’s… Read more →
According to the Australian, Stephen Conroy has been presented with, and endorsed, a report into the feasibility of internet filtering, which claims success. So now we’re a go for real world trials. The actual report is here (PDF), and it makes interesting reading in a sad way. It’s being pulled apart on the SAGE mailing lists at the moment, and… Read more →
Julian Morrow, from The Chaser – obviously one of the main targets of the new law, along with Broken Rites and similar groups, has an opinion piece in the SMH, today. It’s a funny read, and spot on: One easy way to identify a bad law, other than simply reading it, is to think about what types of conduct might… Read more →
RT Essentials by Jesse Vincent, Robert Spier, Dave Rolsky, Darren Chamberlain, Richard Foley
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5 RND(1)); : GOTO 10 (Software Studies) by Nick Montfort, Patsy Baudoin, John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas
The Ware Tetralogy by Rudy Rucker
May 21, 2013 06:53
12.55 km in 00:42:37 (17.7 kph)
HR 110 bpm May 20, 2013 16:27 11.44 km in 00:38:33 (17.8 kph) HR 135 bpm May 20, 2013 06:47 12.69 km in 00:42:19 (18.0 kph) HR 118 bpm May 17, 2013 16:41 11.52 km in 00:40:13 (17.2 kph) HR 123 bpm May 17, 2013 06:56 12.56 km in 00:40:54 (18.4 kph) HR 128 bpm