Nationals Chris Gulaptis 4 ever

After his defeat at the 24 November 2007 federal election, the Nationals candidate for Page Chris Gulaptis removed his campaign website from view on the Internet.

Presumably so that it would be unlikely that his words would be quoted back at him in the future.

Which makes the following from the NSW State Library all the more enjoyable.

The Gulaptis website was archived on 23 November 2007.

Chris Gulaptis - Nationals candidate for Page

This title is part of the "2007 Australian federal election campaign - House of Representatives election candidate web sites" collection.

Chris Gulaptis - Nationals candidate for Page was selected for preservation by the State Library of New South Wales. This title is not scheduled for re-archiving. The publisher's site may provide more current information.

Archived 23 Nov 2007 01:11

North Coast website lands two in gaol

Latest example of 'what not to do' on the Internet can be found here.

The website mentioned is now initially unreachable - "No web site is configured at this address"

However, the dynamic Internet wins again, because this is yet another website which can still be reached and read online courtesy of a large search engine's additional features.

Thereby defeating the aim of those who brought the original legal action and only making more people aware of the website's allegations. 

This rather strange and wayward website is now entering a conspiracy theorists Hall of Fame thanks to the court case.

It probably has more site mentions relating to and quoting the allegedly defamatory material than ever before.

It has always been better known on the NSW North Coast for being able to keep one serious allegation concerning a local politician up on Internet for years without being successfully challenged.

Two Australians go to court to censor Google but dynamic Internet beats them

Two South Yarra real estate agents, from the firm Castran Gilbert, are suing Google for the removal of allegedly defamatory material (concerning that firm's agent dealings with a single disabled person) shown on the results page when using an ordinary Google search.

Google Inc. has since denied public access via it's search engine to the primary material/article.

 

Until these men went to court I had never heard of any person connected with this court case.

However my curiosity was piqued. I found that typing one name into the search box and three mouse clicks yielded a result. I was able to read the entire original article from a secondary source.

 

Thus proving that i) the real estate agents have unnecessarily highlighted the alleged defamation they want suppressed and ii) the Internet is so large and dynamic that it is almost impossible to remove any information once it is posted.

 

I guess the last laugh belongs to the original article's author.

John Winston Howard or Speaker No. 6132 offers to bore the world

John Howard is now on the list of public speakers for hire with The Washington Speakers Bureau.

He is apparently available to speak on such riveting subjects as Leadership in the New Century and The Global Economic Future. Fees on application to the bureau.

No wonder that Australian taxpayers are footing the bill for a personal assistant and possibly one other staffer for The Great Man.

It's going to take a very big shovel to gather the necessary for these speech topics.

 

Leadership in the New Century
Steering the ship of what is the most prominent Western stronghold in the Asian-Pacific Rim requires visionary and forward-thinking leadership. Australian Prime Minister John Howard approached his responsibilities to his country from a uniquely global viewpoint, providing economic vision and security strategies that raised Australia's profile and impact around the world. Howard discusses the role of world leaders in a new century, detailing steps for handling the growing concerns of globalization and global economics, the environment, and threats to international security.
The Global Economic Future
Providing economic leadership in today's world means re-envisioning old economic models to discover new ones. Prime Minister John Howard did precisely that, and so much more, for Australia: in the face of criticism from many, Howard initiated efforts to broker a free-trade agreement with China, a strategic move that was completely unprecedented and, when ratified, will add further credibility to China's willingness to participate in a free market. Howard candidly discusses his vision for the global economic future, and in what ways, and to what degrees, China, India and the Pacific Rim will participate.

Washington Speakers Bureau:

http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerID=6132

Beam me up, Ron L. Hubbard

In Australia most of us might never get to read Andrew Morton's unauthorized biography of American actor Tom Cruise and probably don't much care.

However, this week the Church of Scientology released a 15 page statement in 'rebuttal' of the book's contents and this makes for hilarious reading.

I bet that just about now the church's public affairs director is wishing that everyone had kept as quiet as a mouse and let sleeping dogs etc.,

The statement's florid language alone will ensure increased publicity for Mr. Morton's new book.

TODAYshow.com copy of Church of Scientology statement:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22658115/

 

If this church rant hadn't been sent out, here in regional New South Wales we would still be thinking of Tom Cruise in terms of mum's lamb roast and TV re-runs.

Australian national archives just a tad out of date

Thought I would have a browse through the National Archives of Australia yesterday and much to my surprise found this online entry which is now more than a little out of date.

 

"John Winston Howard

 

John Howard has been the Member for Bennelong (New South Wales) since May 1974. He served in Malcolm Fraser's government as

• Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (1975–77)
• Minister for Special Trade Negotiations (July–December 1977)
• Treasurer (1977–83)
• Minister Assisting the Prime Minister (May–December 1977)

In April 1982 Howard became Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. During the Hawke and Keating governments he was twice Leader of the Opposition (1984–89, 1995–96). Howard became prime minister in 1996."

National  Archives of Australia, 1 January 2007:

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/prime-ministers/howard.aspx

 

A search for Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia using the same search page yielded absolutely nothing.

Time for archive staff to pull their collective fingers out and remedy the situation. An online version of "Kevin who?" is not exactly appropriate.

Few are searching for Brendan Nelson or Warren Truss

It seems that the elevation of Liberals Nelson and Nationals Truss to leaders of their parliamentary parties has caused barely a search term ripple in Google Trends.

Does this mean that Australia thinks it knows all it wants to about these two leaders or does it mean that nobody currently cares?

Google Trends result for last 30 days:
 http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22kevin+rudd%22%2C+%22brendan+nelson%22%2C+%22warren+truss%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

Google Trends begins to chart Howard's exit from world stage

The red line in this graph represents global Google searches for Kevin Rudd and the other represents searches for John Howard.

For the first time since Google Trends began, John Howard has lost dominance in these comparative search term trends for Australian political identities.
Google Trends:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22john+howard%22%2C+%22kevin++rudd%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

Bob Brown favourite for lamb roast dinner invitations: gently poking fun at online polling

It was obvious from the very start of this election campaign that the media were going to make much of opinion polling and that the rest of us would eventually follow along. So North Coast Voices ran a series of very unscientific opinion questions with an almost minute response rate, and here is what we 'found'.

 

Readers of North Coast Voices posts (who also love to tick boxes) are as likely as not to think that the Labor Party will win the most federal seats on the NSW North Coast, would rather invite Bob Brown home for a lamb roast, believe the Greens are the most honest and trustworthy political party, were just as likely to know nothing of local candidates as to have an opinion on individual campaign performance, and if they had their way, John Howard and his descendants would be barred from future election to the Australian Parliament.

 

Happy Exit Polling everyone!