Everyone's lining up for a George Dubbya 'closing down sale' presidential pardon

I've always found US presidential pardons a fascinating subject - Jimmy Hoffa, Richard Nixon, Deep Throat, Caspar Weinberger, Marc Rich and Patty Hearst received them to name just a few.
Outgoing presidents often hand out these pardons as they pack their bags to leave the White House for the last time.
Already George Dubbya is getting a request or two according to media reports and Conrad Black, Michael Milken, Marion Jones, John Michael Lindh, Scooter Libby have all been mentioned as possible lucky dip winners.

Bill Clinton is often accused of having been profligate in handing out 140 'going away' pardons on his final day.
Including one for his brother Roger with the convenient cover of "aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of a false corporate tax return", which is not a good look in Hillary's bid for Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.

But David Latt at The Huffington Post wonders if Bush may have to go even further and pardon virtually everyone who worked for him given the constitutional and human rights excesses during his tenure and concludes:
"So, the question of the hour is: Who will President Bush pardon before he leaves office? Will he put himself at the top of the list?"

Malcolm Turnbull attempts to rain on Kevin Rudd's birthday parade

No wonder Malcolm Turnbull wanted a spot on the televised National Press Club podium today - it was Kevin 07's first birthday as Australian Prime Minister.

Big Mal has posted the transcript of this speech - in which he does his level best to paint the bleakest picture of the national political and financial situation - on his web site.

Nice try, Mal - but is anyone listening?

Speech transcript here.

Time to fess up - how many Tier 1, 2, & 3 Australian ISPs have signed up to trial the Great Firewall of Australia?

The issue of a national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering system being introduced in Australia is of more than passing interest to North Coast Voices and many others in rural and regional areas.

Firstly, this blog is administered via a dial-up account and many of our contributors use the same type of Internet connection.

Secondly, all the blog contributors live in regional New South Wales where both broadband and dial-up speeds are already somewhat erratic.

Thirdly, any diminution in Internet function or speed is likely to cripple access to publication on this group blog.

Fourthly, it is beyond the financial capability of this blog to switch to a more expensive (and it must be said, regionally unreliable) broadband connection.

So before the Christmas Eve starting deadline for the Federal Government's trial of the Rudd-Conroy Great Firewall of Australia; would those ISPs who have lodged expressions of interest concerning participation in this censorship trial please put up their hands (I know that some ISPs will have approached the relevant government department because the 18 November EOI deadline has past).

For its own satisfaction North Coast Voices would like to identify those ISPs which think that:
a) the 475 online content complaints, acted on by ACMA in 2007-08 (which related to content that was prohibited or potentially prohibited under the Broadcasting Services Act and including some overseas online gambling sites ) are reason enough to introduce mandatory Internet censorship to this country;
b) indiscriminately blocking up to 10,000 sites identified by ACMA on a 'blacklist'( which may contain lawful content) is a reasonable thing to interpose between the ISP-User contract;
c) taking part in the trial of a filtering system which one of its supporters admits can only potentially block 30-40% of all p*rn sites (and won't block those who regularly access this type of online content) is justified at any level;
d) participating in a 6 week trial that will without consultation impose on the client a combination of dynamic analysis filtering, IP versus URL filtering and DNS poisoning etc., is in the best interests of their business;
e) existing ISP clients will meekly accept any additional account charge allowed under the trial's Draft Deed of Agreement;
f) customers who are negatively impacted by this trial are actually going to use snail mail to inform ISPs that their Internet connection is crippled, rather than just voting with their feet and moving to an ISP not taking part in Senator Conroy's madness; or
g) that Senator Conroy will still respect them in the morning.

Pic from Cleanfeed

• ACMA Annual Report 2007-08
  
• Internet Service Provider Content Filtering Pilot: Technical Testing Framework, November2008
  
• Draft Deed of Agreement for Filtering Pilot
• Filter supporters talk, Australia listens
  
• Cleanfeed at Whirlpool
  
• ACMA and filtering history at Libertus
  
• Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

First anniversary of the day Australia kicked John Howard out on his a*se!

A small reminder of some of the things which preoccupied us as we went to the polling booths on Saturday 24 November 2007.

Cartoon from First Dog On the Moon

What the heck - take the day off work and celebrate our national good fortune.

Getting the lowdown on PETA and the sheep

The Australian wool industry appears to have suffered a nervous crisis last week when Australian Wool Innovation elected a board which might be perceived to be against the 2010 industry deadline for abandonment of the practice of mulesing sheep.

Now I can sympathise with the graziers frustration at trying to keep to this timetable in the middle of the longest Australian drought in living memory.
However the RSPCA has a point when it speaks of disappointment if the push to end or severely limit this management practice does not go ahead as planned.
Many in this country were quietly thankful that the wool industry was moving away from viewing mulesing as the principal option to prevent fly strike in sheep.

One gets the sense that our farmers are revolting not just because they are faced with significant change or additional financial costs, but because the U.S. based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) successfully led the anti-mulesing charge in the media.

PETA is not always known for taking a balanced position on every issue.
In fact at times this organisation can act like an hysterical pain in the posterior.
Nevertheless, it is a powerful lobby group which has been running for thirty-eight years with a membership of around 1.8 million world-wide and, on the issue of mulesing as it is currently practiced it does have a good point.

Not only does PETA have a large membership; it has a budget that would put many other similar lobby groups to shame:

Income Statement (FYE 07/2007)

Revenue
Primary Revenue	$28,858,103
Other Revenue	$1,753,581
Total Revenue	$30,611,684
Expenses
Program Expenses	$25,417,759
Administrative Expenses	$1,312,701
Fundraising Expenses	$3,680,667
Total Functional Expenses	$30,411,127
Payments to Affiliates	$0
Excess (or Deficit) for the year	$200,557
Net Assets	$16,164,783

Its leadership wage bill appears to make only modest inroads into this budget, with individual annual salaries ranging from about US$34,000 - $79,000, and it is not afraid of commencing litigation in furtherance of its aims.

So perhaps our farmers and graziers should think again about dragging feet on this issue.
It would seem that baulking over mulesing could result in all pain and no gain for the industry during a period when it is bound to be affected to some degree by the global financial crisis.

Who dies from blogging? Who gets killed by Taser?

Cartoon #369 from XKCD

Now I know that The New York Times was probably the first to foster the idea that regular blogging is hazardous to health (helped along by Dr. Helen's post), but I'm willing to bet that the cartoonist at XKCD is principally responsible for the fact that at least 2, 360 mentions of people dying by blogging are currently indexed by Google. Have pencil and PC and humour will travel and travel and travel!

Unfortunately if you take the time to Google for mention of death by Taser you'll bring up around 2,870 citations and none of those are remotely funny.

This week we can add another mention or two to that score because it has been reported that NSW Police sought to conceal the fact that; "A MAN died of a heart attack after being repeatedly shot with a Taser in one of the first uses of the weapon in NSW".

Unfortunately NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipionie has seen fit to roll out a general distribution of these weapons (which have been used by specialist units since 2002) ahead of the NSW Ombudsman's report which calls for a moratorium on such weapons until an independent two-year review can be undertaken.

Scipie tells us that he was not aware that a man with serious chronic illness had been Tasered weeks before his death.
Garn! Even a police commissioner would have been aware that the vast majority of people Tasered by NSW police had to receive some form of medical treatment.

NSW Ombudsman's November 2008 report on The use of Taser weapons by New South Wales Police Force.

Kevin Rudd is following 'no_filter Yamba' tweets?

Hi, no_filter_Yamba.

Kevin Rudd (KevinRuddPM) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Kevin Rudd's profile here:

http://twitter.com/KevinRuddPM


Best,
Twitter

Aw, isn't that nice............

If anyone is interested in following yet another of those Joycean stream-of-consciousness tweeters, no_filter_Yamba can be found here.