Who's to blame for all that hot air?

Every so often the teev features an advert advising us all to eat less meat in the name of combating global warming. Go Veg! it exhorts.
It appears that cows are being blamed for releasing enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
Indeed one Andy Thorpe "an economist at the University of Portsmouth, found a herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane roughly equivalent in energy terms to driving a family car more than 100,000 miles (180,000km) on more than four gallons (21,400 litres) of petrol."
Fair enough, but what about the average bloke and blokette?
How many times do we all pass the wind around each day and how much nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane does this represent?

This is what population numbers looked like on Monday:
World 6,762,457,963
16:20 GMT (EST+5) Feb 23, 2009
Multiply this total by a factor of at least 10-14 'incidents' per day per person and that's a lot of hot air rising.
And what about all those sewerage treatment plants and sanitary landfill sites - how much methane do they produce globally?
I'm betting that cows are getting a run for their money from humans in the personal greenhouse gas stakes.
So I won't be giving Bessie a kick next time I pass her grazing paddock.
As for that irritating advert - meat is a luxury for most of the world anyway and I can hardly eat less than I do already.

A hole in Conroy's censorship net?

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, attended a Senate estimates committee hearing last Monday 23 February 2009.

Quite rightly much has been made of his continuing refusal to rule out censoring legal but 'unwanted' content if the Rudd Government's national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme is implemented.

However, there is another little gem in Monday's transcript of the Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts: Estimates which indicates that Conroy's proposed vastly expanded blacklist may be vulnerable at the outset:

Senator MINCHIN—I do not mean any criticism by this, because I think it is beyond your control, but there is another issue that I want to raise with you. It has been drawn to my attention that primarily because in answering this complaint by email you obviously referred to the site in question, which is understandable, the complainant, as I understand it, made the address of that site widely available via the publication of your email. Are you concerned that that is a significant flaw in your very worthy and, I think, comprehensive endeavours to ensure that the blacklist itself is not published or made available more widely than is absolutely necessary?

Ms O'Loughlin—That is a difficult question. In general, we were disappointed that that was distributed further, but we do not have the capacity to stop a complainant from making their complaint public.

Senator MINCHIN—But do you acknowledge that this is potentially a major hole in the security of the contents of the blacklist?

Ms O'Loughlin—In many respects, our main concern is the totality of the blacklist. That is something that we are distributing and we can make sure that there are appropriate security provisions in place for it. I think it is difficult for us then to take a step further and require complainants to keep their complaints to themselves. They know the consequences of the listing. We are disappointed by it, but it is difficult for us to do much more than encourage people not to distribute those things much further.

Senator Conroy—Just to clarify: this is the existing blacklist under the existing law that was in place for most of the period of the former government. It is the existing blacklist and the existing law that we are having a discussion about.

Senator MINCHIN—Yes, I accept that, Minister. I also accept that, if there is a loophole here, it has existed for some time, but perhaps it is just now being exploited. So is not an offence in any way, under any law or regulation, for anybody to publish a site, a page or whatever it is that has been blacklisted as a result of a complaint made.

It is evident that Senator Conroy will have to broaden his censorship net to make it unlawful for correspondence with the Australian Communications and Media Authority to be published, if he doesn't want any part of his precious blacklist to be leaked.
It appears likely that that he is be considering this option.

There is no end to the stupidity flowing from the Rudd-Conroy Great Firewall of Australia.

Twittering the Internet censorship protest continues

The Fake Stephen Conroy was still enjoying the banter last week.

stephenconroy Got science boffins looking into The Secret; apparently thinking about kiddie p#rn (and bicycles) can manifest kiddie p#rn (and bicycles). about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

jonseymour @stephenconroy does that make you a manifestation of someone's worst nightmare? about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to stephenconroy

Pic from Agmates.com and apologies to Jon for the # edit. The Administrator made me do it!

And here comes Hartsuyker trailing in the rear....

Since he was turfed from the government benches along with his Coalition mates in 2007, Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker has suddenly discovered the lives of ordinary Northern Rivers folk.
Surprise, surprise; this month he's noticed that single pensioners are doing it tough and has to tell the world about it.
Pity about the timing - his media release (and its beaut go at rewriting a little slice of history) lost much of its punch once Tony Abbott opened his mouth.
Luke now looks less like a self-styled local hero and more like the meat in the sandwich, as mainstream media records the difference of opinion between Truffles and the Mad Monk.
ABC Mid North Coast Radio News this week:
"The federal Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, says the Nationals remain committed to raising the single aged pension.
Opposition families spokesman Tony Abbott appeared to be pulling away from supporting a payment increase after telling 2GB radio that the increase was not viable.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull then issued a statement calling on the Government to raise the pension.
Mr Hartsuyker says the change would bring Australia into line with key OECD countries.
"The Nationals are absolutely committed to raising the single aged pension by $30," he said.
"We have a situation where single aged pensioners are doing it particularly tough. It's important that they receive a pension that is around two-thirds of the married rate.
"In many countries around the world that is the status that exists. It is vitally important we support our single aged pensioners."

A Hartsuyker staffer also sent out a media release which was passed on to me this week by Clarencegirl.
It seems Luke is also hot under the collar over the coming redistribution of federal electorates in NSW which will see one seat go.
He's called on "North Coast residents to oppose any plan to reduce the number of Federal seats which exist in regional New South Wales".
As no North Coast electorates are affected by this redistribution, what little electoral gerrymander or two are we being asked to help create elsewhere?
He says he wants a Sydney seat to disappear - presumably one held by Labor's Murphy or Plibersek.
Or could his plea be a move to protect a couple of Lib MPs in Gilmore and Macarthur?

Pauline Plant of Yamba - finalist for NSW Woman of the Year

Pauline Plant, the creator of the Yamba Breast Cancer Support Group and Breast awareness program, is one of 10 finalists for the NSW Woman of the Year Award.

Earlier this year Mrs Plant was announced as the 2009 Clarence Valley Citizen of the Year.

The finalists for the Woman of the Year Award were chosen from 87 nominations with the winner to be announced on International Women's Day on March 5.

The other nominees are:

Layne Beachley - former world champion surfer

Cheryl Koenig - author

Patricia Johnson - State Emergency Service volunteer

Rozita Leoni - Eastern Sydney community worker

Wendy McCarthy - former University of Canberra chancellor

Jan Savage - Cancer Care Western NSW fundraising coordinator

Sue Ismiel - philanthropist

Rhonda French - a Wiradjuri woman, who voluntarily promotes positive health, education and cultural programs

Ana Tiwary - Vice-president of Women in Film and Television

Pic from The Daily Examiner

Dolphins at play, Iluka NSW

Photographs by Mike Litzow displayed at his blog

Once In A Lifetime.

The adventures of Mike, Alisa and young Elias on the sailboat Pelagic.

An object lesson for Senator Conroy.........

In December last year the BBC One Watchdog program outed legal firm Davenport Lyons for sending threatening letters to individuals with home internet connections (operating open WiFi networks) demanding sums in the vicinity of £500-£600 for alleged infringement of copyright.

These letters of demand were adamant that copyright breaches had occurred, even though it later found that it was in the wrong because either the downloading was proven not to have occurred on the PC in question or the stated IP addresses were incomplete or fake.

Now Davenport Lyons went so far as to make application to the UK High Court to start this extortion-like process off and it quickly descended into the ridiculous:

15. At 8:50pm on 08 Dec 2008, ebvjb45 wrote:

I also received one of these letters accusing me of uploading and making available a po*rn film called ************. As a happily married pensioner of 64 years old I ask you!. After plowing through the documentation I spotted one or two items that are either missing or incorrect.
It would appear that although they have my full postal address they do not have my name! The letter and documentation is addressed by name to ?Provider, Royal Mail Holdings PLC? If they do not use my name or appear to know it how on earth can they carry out any threats of court actions?
For me they list that the upload was done using three different IP Addresses, but all at the same time! As I understand it, my ISP issues me with single new IP address dynamically each time I reconnect to the internet (NOT THREE). As I use an ADSL Network Router that IP Address remains allocated to me till I switch off the router or disconnect it from the telephone line. The router is left switched on for weeks at a time. This throws some doubts on their data gathering reliability.
Doing a Google search on the name Davenport Lyons brings up some interesting facts about this company. After reading the comments about them and their ways of doing things I am certainly not going to be paying them a settlement. I will wait till they try to take me to court and fight it there.
Needless to say I have not seen this video, downloaded it or uploaded it.

It would have been most useful had Watchdog named the Lawyer who is representing the 400 people who received these demand letters, as I would like to make that figure up to 401 with my name. [Quote has been edited to avoid blocking by filters]

This law firm is apparently threatening Wikileaks for online publishing an example of the questionable letter of demand.

This is what Wikileaks has additionally published concerning how Davenport Lyons 'found' its information:

The legal threat letters themselves contain a hash value, and IP address and a time stamp that is being used as evidence – flimsy evidence according to many people who have observed the legal side of file-sharing. The reason it is seen as flimsy is that a filename can be called anything and still have the same hash value. Second of all, there is no evidence provided that verified that the file name matched what the actual work was. For all we know, it could have been a 5 minute porn clip rather than a music video. Thirdly, there's no evidence to suggest that an IP address is linked to an individual. The computer could be used by someone other than the owner of the connection. There could be a wifi connection that other users, including unauthorized ones, could be using that IP address. Finally, a time stamp doesn't contribute much into proving that a copyrighted work has been uploaded. The alleged incident in question happened over BitTorrent, but no website was given, so who really knows where the evidence was gathered in the first place?

A Davenport Lyons letter threatening the whistleblower with legal action was sent out this month.

This may be a response to the fact that it appears that Which? consumer group is now taking Davenport Lyons to court.

As the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, pursues his plan to censor the Internet in an effort to meet the corporate aims of both the IT security and entertainment industries he should perhaps ponder what bullying monsters he might be letting loose on Australian society.

Particularly as the Federal Government's own agency ACMA is operating in almost complete secrecy in creating its blacklist.

Senator Conroy may give assurances that the government will not be pursuing Internet account holders who appear to breach the ISP-level filter (if such a scheme is implemented), but there is no assurance that the client information which would have to be held by these ISPs will not be abused in the future.