I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 3.0.2, with a theme update. With a bit of luck I’ll blog a bit more over the coming months.
SemiArticulate
Random MusingsI was driving back to Adelaide, and spotted a sign at the GlenOsmond Rd/PortRush Rd intersection:
Police are targetting criminal activity in the eastern suburbs
What else do the police target in the eastern suburbs? (or anywhere else for that matter).
I was perusing the onion the other day, and found an article that reminded me of the ACL and Senator Conroy’s committment to ‘evidence based policy’.
Life imitating Art? As usual, the Onion is all TIC!.
** WARNING KEYBOARD ALERT **
Oh, No! It’s Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run!
ACT Senator Kate Lundy (ALP) is getting more feedback on the ill conceived internet censorship policy. Her original blogpost was informative, as was all the feed back given.
One thing that stood out was her understanding that the mandatory nature of the censorship proposal was a election promise, and the subsequent objections were a mere misunderstanding of the promise.
In other words, there was an ambivalent reaction to the policy at the time of the election policy because it was not understood to be a mandatory filter for the general population.
Unfortunately the wording of the under-reported policy doesn’t support her understanding. We got exactly the meaning of the promise.
The offending wording is (from this ALP policy document from 2007 on page 5):
A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.
The use of the word ‘offer’, combined with ‘accessible by children’ would indicate it was very optional to childless homes, and optional to all areas.
I do understand the drafters may have intention of having mandatory, but the wording doesn’t bear that out. It may be the usual political use of weasal words to prevent them from being pinned to what they said, but unfortunately it has backfired.
I do hope that the good Senator does listen to the people she is supposed to represent, and vote against this policy. Both in the Labor caucus, and on the Senate floor (regardless of caucus outcome). I for one will not vote for, or give preferences to the ALP if this policy comes into effect.
As reported in The Australian, the ACMA has issued a takedown notice to an ISP for a LINK to a website that is on it’s unwanted (potentially prohibited content) list, that is going to be the backbone of the government’s mandatory censorship scheme.
This is after the “good” senator promised that political content would not be blocked.
More at the EFA
As an act of civil disobedience, I’ll post the link here.
** WARNING ** WARNING ** the images on the following page are quite vile and disgusting, and I don’t think it is appropriate for anyone. It contains images of supposedly aborted fetuses. Don’t look at it if you are a bit queasy.
you will have to google “AbortionTV Pictures #6” to go to the site, as AMCA have served a link deletion notice on this page.
** Edit: 18 Oct 2010 – Active link deleted due to ACMA link deletion notice.
I’ve finally updated wordpress to 2.7. Hopefully nothing breaks.
From http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1071642&p=7#r129
Five surgeons are discussing who has the best patients to operate on.
The first surgeon says, “I like to see accountants on my
operating table because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”
The second responds, “Yeah, but you should try electricians!
Everything inside them is color coded.”
The third surgeon says, “No, I really think librarians are the
best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”
The fourth surgeon chimes in: “You know, I like construction
workers. Those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over
at the end, And when the job takes longer than you said it would.”
But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: “You’re
all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There’s no guts, no
heart, no balls, no brains and no spine. Best of all: the head and the butt
are interchangeable.
I know it has been a while. I’ve moved to Adelaide, commuting to Melbourne for the weekends. Haven’t done much flying, except for 3 and a bit hours at Porepunkah.
Totals: 36h28 (10h1 Solo) over 107 (28) flights
Merry Christmas everyone..
I’ve got a roast lamb in the oven for the hoards that should be banging on the gate (erm.. front door) in little over an hour from now.
Since the last GSR I’ve had 5 flights, 1 solo of 18mins, 2 winch launchs, and two instructional flights.
The instructional flight was interesting as I had my first non-on-purpose spin. Agressive angle of bank, slow thermalling speed, fell out of said thermal with the nose slightly high, slipped alittle, correct with a bit of rudder, and whammo – insta spin. Scared both me and the instructor 🙁
We did some spin trainng after I calmed my nerves down a bit.
I’ve been off with hayfever, so the last three weeks, I haven’t been flying 🙁
Totals: 30h15 (6h44 solo) over 98 (24) flights.
Apparantly I’m a “Supreme Nerd” :-S
To find out your “nerdiness” go to:
Yay! I’ve done my conversion flight in the SZD-50-3 Puchacz (one step closer to the single seat SZD-51 Junior). Two flights, 13 and 18 minutes.
Totals: 28h23 (6h26 solo) over 93 (23) flights.
Just one flight today, of 23 minutes in the K13. It looks as though I’ll be in the K13 a while longer, as I haven’t done the requisite number of hours (even though I’ve done the number of flights). I need about 4 more hours in the K13, so I should really only go out on good days.
Even then, I’ll be in the Puchacz, not in the Junior (a bit of a setback, but hey, rules are rules)
Totals: 27h52 (5h55 solo) over 91 (21) flights.
I’ve been away from home for a week and a half, out doing a sargent course. We did leadership exersizes, many discussions on observing people, conflict resolution and the like.
A lot of the stuff that we do already, but formallised and expanded.
Great fun.