They're at it again! Pollies editing Wikipedia

No wonder Aussie politicians have reputations lower than a snake's belly.
Certain pollies, their staff and advisers have again been sprung editing Wikipedia, to change or remove parts of entries with which they disagree.
Being ably assisted in this by staff at the Australian Parliamentary Library, who should have known better than to advise such a risky course of action censorship.

What was left of Wikipedia's rep has, along with the previously considerable reputation of the Parliamentary Library, flown out the window with this latest news.

Clocking up hours at taxpayer expense to edit a charitable organisation's website will not win any points with voters either.

It seems that a change of government did not in fact alter the habits of those scurrying about Roaches Castle on Capital Hill, Canberra.

If you didn't keep a record last time, here is the Wikiscanner website which will allow you to back track suspicious entries and edits to their source.

We all need to get out more...

It seems that we all might need to get out more (and that includes advertising whiz kids).

At http://www.howdoyoulikeyourvegemite.com.au/ we are logging on to tell the world just how we like to spread our Vegemite.

There must be something about this humble yeast spread that taps into our lyrical selves.

Here is an Ode to Vegemite, A Tribute to Keats [1] courtesy of Sydney Poetry Blog and Becca Callaway.

O! Vegemite.

That molten onyx,

Oozing over the rough

Crumbling toast.

As my stainèd teeth

Rip into your skin,

As my blackened tongue

Pierces your sticky centre.O! Vegemite.

Oh, oh Vegemite.

As peristalsis

Takes its tangy toll.

As you slither down my oesophagus,

Whole.

O! Vegemite.

O! Sweet choking Vegemite.

Soothe the acids of my gut.

Writhe inside my big fat pot.

O! Vegemite

O! Vegemite.

Ode to Vegemite [2] here

Natural artists of the Clarence Valley

Clarence Valley sisters

Doris and Gladys O'Grady
who lived between
1894 and 1994.

Images from Grafton Regional Gallery

Aunty ABC presents iView with teething problems for consumers

So Aunty is giving Australia free internet streaming on six channels with iView.

Five of the channels are showing 'catch up' programmes, which is the spin for repeat programmes and the sixth appears to be an 'ad' channel for the ABC Shop.

iTWire tells us that
"iView uses a Flash-based player which may not be everyone's ideal, but at least it's available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The main menu page is a fairly hefty 2.3M (the bulk of that being the various XML files), and the episodes burn around 5M per minute. Clearly, this is not for people on 400M/month Internet plans. Oh, and the ABC recommends available bandwidth of at least 1.1Mbps for smooth playback. "

However, there is little to celebrate yet as so far only iiNet has reportedly agreed to place these ABC channels on the 'unmetered' download list.
Can anyone really see the Telstra board and CEO coming to the party?
Telstra has to be close to the biggest ISP based on broadband market share, so pigs might fly sooner.

As PC Authority puts it
"Telstra would rather you buy content from Bigpond Movies than watch iView for free, which is why it gives its customers such measly download limits but doesn't count data used downloading content from Bigpond. It's a de facto walled garden - you don't need walls when you cut people off at the knees so they don't have a high enough data allowance to go anywhere else. "

Wall Street Journal McCain v Obama July poll

The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Sen. Barack Obama.
With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn't over any single issue being debated between the Democrats' Sen. Obama or the Republicans' Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama? It's still looking like a toss of the coin in the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign.

We are halfway through Echidna breeding season - drive carefully

Photo from the ABC

Echidna breeding season still has around six more weeks to run. Please take care when driving on rural roads or near bushland in your area. An amorous Echidna doesn't look both ways before crossing the road!

Grab your flack jacket - Australia's under attack!

When out surfing the Net last night I came across the Global Terrorism Database.
Opening the tab GD2 I received something of a shock. It seems that Australia has had 63 terrorist attacks up to 1997, many involving fatalities.

Does anyone remember an attack on 19 August 1996 which targeted government and saw 60 people injured?
Or four days earlier the indigenous community of Halls Creek conducting a terrorist attack on multiple fronts?
A terrorist assault on business on 28 February 1997 which saw 19 hurt?

Here are the website's details:
Copyright © 2007 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism START: A Center of Excellence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA 301.405.6600

mailto:infostart@start.umd.edu?subject=GTD

http://www.start.umd.edu/

Last Updated: May 14, 2007

The methodology is here.

Call 000 if your laughter threatens to become terminal.

Updated GD2 webpage for Australia showing 9 more terrorist attacks between 1998 and 2003.