It's market failure, says Senator Conroy

Australian Minister for Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy says that the Rudd Government announcement that it will establish a national broadband network costing around $43 billion (financed by government bond issues) is due to "market failure"
From where I'm sitting it looks more like a Stevo failure to me.
The Australian rightly points to Telstra as the fly in the ointment but doesn't mention that the Conroy tender process didn't result in viable bids anyway.
Having Stephen Conroy as minister when the basic plan for creating the new national network is being put in place does not bode well.
Especially as home use on the new network will be limited and much more expensive according to one analyst - which if true will alarm the average blogger
When is Kevin Rudd going to shuffle this inept minister away from a sensitive portfolio and into the obscurity he so fully deserves.
Conroy is a living example of the Peter Principle; "the theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent."

Beserker 2009

Many Australian families have stories past down through the years about life during the Great Depression.
By now some of these stories have acquired a glossy surface demonstrating the family's valiant survival and humour in the face of adversity.

However, it doesn't take much to peek below and see memories of the fear, distrust and intense dislike which existed between those without jobs or income and the agents of those that had both.

If one delves deeper one often finds examples of verbal and physical violence.
Threats, beatings; to the constant refrain of get out, get out or move on, move on.

I'm not suggesting that the world is on the brink of another world-wide depression as I write, but I am wondering how a modern affluent society used to only relative poverty since the Great Depression will cope with a prolonged global recession.

If Australia were to enter a long period of high unemployment, will our answer at an individual level be the type of violence seen in the growing number of multiple murders since the beginning of 2008 in America and elsewhere?
Or will Australian society weather the global financial crisis relatively intact?
Will our old egalitarian myths sustain us?

Photograph from The Age

XKCD on windpower - the funny side of the energy debate

From XKCD

It's not easy being Google ;-)

"Google may be mapping the streets of the Western world but the good folk of Broughton, in Buckinghamshire, England, don't want a bar of it.
The Google Street View car was blocked from filming last week by angry residents, led by Paul Jacobs, who alerted neighbours after spotting the car from his window.
"I don't have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home," Mr Jacobs told the BBC.
"We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike."
Mr Jacobs called police, who arrived to find a crowd in dispute with the Google driver, but the car moved on." [Brisbane Times on 6th April 2009]

"Mr [Rupert] Murdoch also questioned whether the newspaper industry should continue to allow online news aggregators such as Google to aggregate newspaper content without being compensated for it.
"Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?" [The Australian 4th April 2009]

"Google launched Street View in the U.S. in May 2007, soon visually documenting and uploading the streetscapes of eight other countries to the web. Later that year, crews also embarked on Canadian streets, snapping static shots from camera-mounted sedans embossed with the ubiquitous company logo.
Holding an array of cameras, each vehicle moves along public roads collecting raw images of everything that happens to be in view – including residences, passersby and any other happenstance activity that's trapped by its sophisticated lenses.
It's the 2007 photos that will be showcased in the upcoming release. The reason they're only being posted now is partially thanks to concerns previously raised by the federal privacy commissioner, who feared the easily accessible photos showing some citizens could infringe on their privacy, Denham said.
Canada's privacy laws require that the person being photographed give their consent to the pictures being published, unless they are being taken for "journalistic, literary or artistic purposes."
The company recently approached Denham's office to explain what measures it has taken to alleviate its misgivings. In post-production, Google now subjects all photos to an automated process of blurring people's faces and licence plates." [TheStar.com on 5th April 2009]

"COMPANIES that aggregate mainstream media content without paying a fee are the "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet" and will soon be challenged, Robert Thomson, the Australian-born editor of The Wall Street Journal has warned.
Thomson, who was holidaying in Australia last week, said companies such as Google were profiting from the "mistaken perception" that content should be free........
"Google argues they drive traffic to sites, but the whole Google sensibility is inimical to traditional brand loyalty," he said.
"Google encourages promiscuity -- and shamelessly so -- and therefore a significant proportion of their users don't necessarily associate that content with the creator.
"Therefore revenue that should be associated with the creator is not garnered." [The Australian 6th April 2009]

"A trademark lawsuit against Google that a lower court had dismissed in 2006 has been given new life.
Rescuecom, a Syracuse, New York, computer services franchising business, sued Google in 2004, alleging that Google has seriously hurt its business by serving up competitors' ads when users search for "Rescuecom" in Google's search engine.
The suit alleges that Google and Rescuecom competitors buying the ads profit without authorization from the Rescuecom trademark, and that the practice can also confuse potential customers and franchisees, resulting in lost business.
In its defense, Google argued that the selling "Rescuecom" as a keyword to competitors that triggers their ads along with search results isn't a trademark infringement under the Lanham Act." [Computer World 6th April 2009]

Grocery Choice still limps along...

The Rudd Government's much vaunted GroceryChoice website (allowing for online price comparison across grocery retail chains) still limps along, awaiting the CHOICE revamp which is promised for July this year.

Five months to revamp a website is a long time (a task subcontracted to SMS Management and Technology) and the worry grows that in the end CHOICE will only use this website as an extension of its existing information service and not regularly deliver a more detailed level of price comparisons across retail chains in regional Australia, where consumers are often disadvantaged due to more limited shopping options.

The website disclaimer now says it all:
Although the Australian Government supports this website by contributing funding to its operation, it is not an Australian Government website and the Australian Government is not responsible for its content or operation and, to the extent permitted by law the Australian Government makes no representation and gives no warranty and accepts no liability in respect to it.

North Eastern NSW April 09 price comparisons

Byron Shire Council to grow food on public land

On April 4 Byron Shire Council launched its pilot program for growing food plants on public land.
The pilot program will be co-managed by Council and the community over six months and involve monthly working bees.

Byron Shire Council’s Sustainability Officer, Graeme Williams; ‘This project is in response to some of the more alarming global trends. ‘While this is a small trial project, something like it on a larger scale could have large economic implications by relocalising our food production systems.
‘We currently have such a disconnection with the food we consume. Hopefully walking past publicly grown food will encourage interaction and maybe motivate people to emulate the system in their backyards. ‘Growing our own food is a lost art somewhat and one we should regain given our economic and climatic situation.‘The project will address all four arms of sustainability: environmental (food miles, resource dependency), social (bringing the community together and educating people), economic (with agriculture and farming both growth industries) and lastly, governance, with our council as a local government forerunner in this area, devoting council land to develop food security projects.’

Byron Shire Council is to be congratulated for this innovative approach to public health and resource sustainability.

Hopefully other Northern Rivers councils are watching this pilot and considering how they may use the wealth of local public land which is earmaked for eventual development far into the future and which lies idle now.

Picture from Google Images

Pollie jokes review

By the last year of the Howard Government jokes about Coalition pollies had been refined to a professional standard and we all had a good laugh.
Now that we're almost at the halfway point in this Rudd Government first term, do we have any jokes to show for it?
Are they all that funny?

Well we have Rudd, Kevin Rudd a video over at Unsourced Humor.

Jokesey gave us an old BOOM-BOOM about Rudd and the strip club:
Did you hear that Kevin Rudd saw a disappointing poll this morning? It was bereft of a gyrating naked woman...

At The Reel Deal it was a replay of an old Howard joke with Rudders substituted as the butt.

I Seek Golf came up with a Little Johnnie:
Kevin Rudd was visiting a primary school in Tasmania.
One class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
The teacher asked Mr. Rudd if he would like to lead the discussion on the word 'tragedy'.
So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a 'tragedy'.
A little boy stood up and offered: 'If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a 'tragedy'.
'No,' said Rudd 'that would be an accident.'
A little girl raised her hand: 'If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy'.
'I'm afraid not,' explained Mr. Rudd 'that's what we would call great loss'.
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Rudd searched the room. 'Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?'
Finally, at the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand.
In a quiet voice he said: 'If a plane carrying you and Mrs. Rudd was struck by a 'friendly fire'
missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.'
'Fantastic!' exclaimed Rudd . 'That's right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?'
'Well,' says little Johnny 'it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be a f*cking accident either!'

At Love For Life teh joke was looong:

But it was at Kevin Rudd LOL that my funny bone was finally tickled:
Kevin Rudd called Julia Gillard into his office one day and said, "Julia I have a great idea! We are going to go all out to win the country voters."
"Good idea Prime Minister, how will we go about it?" said Julia.
"Well," said Rudd, "we'll get ourselves one of those Driza Bone coats, some RM Williams boots, a stick and an Akubra hat, oh and a Blue Cattle dog.
Then we'll really look the part. We'll go to a typical old outback country pub, we'll show we really enjoy the bush." " Right ,"said Julia.
Days later, all kitted out and with the requisite Blue heeler, they set off from Canberra in a westerly direction.
Eventually they arrived at just the place they were looking for and found a typical outback pub. Walked in with the dog and up to the bar.
"G,day mate," said Rudd, to the bartender, "two middies of your best beer." "Good afternoon Prime Minister," said the bartender, "two middies of our best coming up".
Gillard and Rudd stood leaning on the bar drinking their beer and chatting, nodding now and again to those who came into the bar for a drink. The dog lay quietly at their feet.
All of a sudden, the door from the adjacent bar opened and in came a grizzled old stockman, complete with stockwhip.
He walked up to the cattle dog, lifted its tail with the whip and looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the other bar.
A few moments later, in came another old stockman with his whip. He walked up to the dog and, lifted it's tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and went back to the other bar.
Over the course of the next hour or so another four or five stockmen came in and, lifted the dogs tail and went away looking puzzled.
Eventually, Rudd and Gillard could stand it no longer and called the barman over. "Tell me," said Rudd, "why did all those old stockmen come in and look under the dog's tail like that? Is it an old outback custom?"
"Strewth no!" said the barman. "It's just that someone went 'n told 'em there was a cattle dog in this bar with two arseholes!"