*
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Still time to get your entry in for the 2010 Bureau of Meteorology calendar
The Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society's Australian Weather Calendar photography competition for the 2010 calendar will close on 31 March 2009.
Still time for photographer's on the NSW North Coast to send off their favourite lucky weather photo to see if the Northern Rivers can be represented in the next calendar.
This is definitely a for the love of it competition, but lots of fun if you make the final cut.
Entries must have a meteorological theme, such as clouds, thunderstorms, lightning, rainbows or tornadoes.
Entries must be provided initially as photographic prints, at a minimum size of 15x10 cm. Digital pictures must be a minimum size of 5MB uncompressed (about 1700 x 1150 pixels), such as are produced by 2 megapixel cameras. No more than 10 entries per person are permitted.
Entries must be accompanied by a completed entry form that contains details of any and all digital alteration to images.
Photographers must be willing to provide the image in its original format (negative, transparency or digital file) if the picture is shortlisted.
Winning photographers are awarded three complimentary calendars. No prizemoney is offered. All rights associated with the images are retained by the photographer.
Entries must be sent to:
Weather Calendar Competition,
Public Affairs Group,
Bureau of Meteorology,
GPO Box 1289,
MELBOURNE VIC 3001
More information:Telephone (03) 9669 4668, fax: (03) 9669 4113, e-mail: librarypic@bom.gov.au
And you thought is 'twas only Muslims.........
I stumbled across a website yesterday called the Catholic League: for religious and civil rights.
Intriguingly it links to annual reports on anti-Catholicism (up to 2007) and other supposedly anti sentiment - Christmas Wars and The Jewish Community Should Rethink Its Attitude Towards Pius XII.
But what really fascinated me were the cartoons this report objected to in 2007, like the one above.
It seems that it isn't just the Islamic faith which is touchy over caricature and political comment.
And this mob keep a yearly tally!
Friday, 9 January 2009
Bambauer rains on Senator Conroy's parade - download full text of Internet censorship paper
FILTERING IN OZ:
AUSTRALIA'S FORAY INTO INTERNET CENSORSHIP
Derek E. Bambauer*
Abstract
Australia's decision to implement Internet censorship using technological meanscreates a natural experiment: the first Western democracy to mandate filtering legislatively, and to retrofit it to a decentralized network architecture.
But are the proposed restrictions legitimate?
The new restraints derive from the Labor Party'spro-filtering electoral campaign, though coalition government gives minority politicians considerable influence over policy.
The country has a well-defined statutory censorship system for on-line and off-line material that may, however, be undercut by relying on foreign and third-party lists of sites to be blocked.
While Australia is open about its filtering goals, the government's transparency about what content is to be blocked is poor.
Initial tests show that how effective censorship is at filtering prohibited content – and only that content – will vary based on what method the country's ISPs use.
Though Australia's decision makers are formally accountable to citizens, efforts to silence dissenters, outsourcing of blocking decisions, and filtering's inevitable transfer of power to technicians undercut accountability.
The paper argues Australia represents a shift by Western democracies towards legitimating Internet filtering and away from robust consideration of the alternatives available to combat undesirable information.
PDF of draft paper at SSRN
Image from The Sydney Morning Herald
Gaza '09: Reports from Israeli human rights groups
B'Tselem (Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in Occupied Territories) has this link to a blog reporting human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
B'Tselem also documents the appalling mortality statistics between 29.9.2000-30.11.2008 which show 2,994 Palestinians (including 634 minors) in the Gaza Strip were killed by Israeli security forces/civilians compared with 136 Israeli dead (including 4 minors) in the same territory killed by Palestinians.
With totals across Gaza, West Bank and Israel for the same period showing 4,897 Palestinian dead (including 955 minors) and 1,062 Israeli dead (including 123 minors).
The current bombing and incursion into the Gaza Strip will of course swell these figures markedly in relation to the number of Palestinians killed or wounded.
When will enough be enough?
Philip Slater over at The Huffington Post expresses what must be a common sentiment:
I can understand that after centuries of persecution it's satisfying for a Jewish state to be the aggressor for a change, but there's a codicil that goes with that role. You don't get to act like a victim any more. "Poor little Israel" just sounds silly when you're the dominant power in the Middle East. When you've invaded several of your neighbors, bombed and defeated them in combat, occupied their land, and taken their homes away from them, it's time to stop acting oppressed. Yes, Arab states deny your right to exist, threaten to drive you into the sea, and all the rest of their futile, helpless rhetoric. The fact is, you have the upper hand and they don't. You have sophisticated arms and they don't. You have nuclear weapons and they don't. So stop pretending to be pathetic. It doesn't play well in Peoria.
B'Tselem 2009 testimony page.
A big round of applause for W.I.R.E.S wildlife rescue please
According to The Daily Examiner, last year WIRES Northern Rivers received 50,000 telephone calls from the public and made 25,000 rescues of injured animals.In the Clarence Valley WIRES averaged 10 calls per day over 2008 for everything from injured eastern grey kangaroos, wedgetail eagles, parrots, and water birds, to various lizards and snakes.
WIRES volunteers are always prompt, polite and caring whenever they call to pick up injured or 'lost' wildlife from around the NSW North Coast and we are all lucky to have such an excellent service just a phone call away.
Thinking of donating?
Donate by Phone
Call 02 8977 3333 and have your credit card details on hand to donate over the phone.
Donate by Fax
Download a printable donation form to send through the post to:
PO Box 260
FORESTVILLE NSW 2087
PO Box 260
FORESTVILLE NSW 2087
* Photograph of Tawny Frogmouths from WIRES Northern Rivers
It's official - the editor's an ars#h@le
The Daily Examiner at Grafton celebrates 150 years of news publication this year. It's circulation covers the Clarence Valley, with a supposed readership of around 28,000 from Monday to Saturday.
A somewhat unnatural number given that there are only about 50,000 people living in the Valley.
Still, it is to be congratulated for hanging in there when so many in the print media are living on what appears to be borrowed time as teh teev and teh net make inroads into 'audience' share.
So it's a real pity that in a year of celebration this local paper should be lumbered with such a tactless, insensitive tabloid hack like its johhny-come-lately editor, Peter Chapman.
His latest effort on Tuesday was to berate Yamba small business owners for taking either Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day off to be with their own family and friends.
Apparently everyone in Yamba should have been open comme la Gold Coast for the benefit of the editor, his extended family and friends (because not for one moment did I believe in the unnamed dissatisfied 'tourists' he was supposedly championing).
As an afterthought he also included Maclean and Grafton shopkeepers in his gripe - presumably the boofhead remembered that he currently resides in Yamba and has to face his neighbours once the paper hits the streets.
Map from APN
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