Australia Uncensored blows the whistle on who Conroy is actually censoring on the Australian Internet

From Australia Uncensored on 27 December 2009:

The Rudd Government's not censoring the Australian Internet - it's censoring older people

If you read Rudd Government bumpf on the need for Internet censorship and all that nonsense which Senator Conroy mouths, it would be easy to believe that Australian users are mostly innocent children and evil paedophiles just waiting to prey on these sweet innocents.

Small problem with this premise though.

Australian Internet users are mainly adults over 35 years of age (66.3% in all and mostly female) and the biggest proportion of these adults are over 55 years of age according to one 2007 snapshot.

In 2008 Nielsen said that Australians were spending almost 14 hours a week surfing the Net (out of a total of 84.4 media consumption hours) with 94% of all users accessing the Internet from home, and by March 2009 it was reporting that our individual media consumption was averaging 89.7 hours per week with the biggest slice of this being our Internet use.

By 2009 the CIA World Fact Book calculated that over 15 million Australians use the Internet.

Now it's not hard to guess that techno-savvy, usually computer literate from an early age, individuals will be able to circumvent any national filter at will - the Enex report to the Dept. of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy even tells us so.

It's also not hard to realise that older users rely almost solely on the expertise of the big search engines (which are currently not universally filtered for Australian use) to find their way to online information and opinion.

Which leaves the planned mandatory national ISP-level filtering scheme censoring people rather than cyberspace and most of those people with artificially limited access to information and free speech will be middle-aged and older voters.

Potentially making at least 10 million Australians very ticked off with Kevin Rudd and the Labor Government ahead of the next federal election.

I'm one of these, Senator Conroy! I'm not impressed that, having fairly successfully spanned technology which moved from sloping school desks with ink wells and nibbed wooden pens right through to today's cyberspace, you and your Labor Right cronies are trying to tell me that I'm to have restricted access to the world.

Guess where my vote won't be going?

* What Rudd & Conroy attempt to censor now on the Australian Internet

While you were sleeping....more Antarctic whales were being killed

Greenpeace photograph of whales in the Southern Ocean

The whaling fleet subsidised by the Government of Japan is still in Antarctic waters killing whales for so-called scientific research and commercial whale meat. The fleet is not expected to sail back to Japan until sometime between mid-March and April 2010.

This is the person responsible for the ongoing needless slaughter:

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (standing)

So you made a New Year's resolution......

So you made a New Year's resolution again this year to do one or more of the following:
A. Manage your credit card debt a bit better
B. Save money so that next Christmas will be stress free
C. Lose some weight
D. Get fit, maybe even join a gym
E. Quit smoking
F. Drink less alcohol
G. Study hard when school/uni starts again for the year
H. Impress the boss with your get and up and go or just go
I. Bike to work
J. Take up a sport
K. Watch less television and read more
L. Take the pooch for longer walks

M. Ask for her hand in marriage/tell him you're getting a divorce.

N. Eat less take away and cook healthy meals.

Well done! I give you until the end of the month to abandon each and every good intention except for M - we're always attracted to the big mistakes in life.
Yeah, I know, that sounds a trifle jaded, but Professor Richard Wiseman sorta backs me up because his team found that 78% of resolution makers crash and burn.

However all is not lost as Teh Prof appears to have nailed a few decent tips over at his blog:
Last year we tracked hundreds of people who were trying to keep their resolution, asking them to report on their success and the techniques that they were using. The results suggest that many of the ideas recommended by self-help experts simply don't work. We have developed a fun quiz on off the back of this work that predicts the likelihood of you achieving your resolutions – try it here. We have also posted lots more about the work, including ten tips for keeping your resolutions over on the 59 seconds site. Part of the work revealed that you will increase your chances of achieving your aims if you tell others about your goal. So, what's your resolution?

How we began the year 2010....

It's now January 2010. The beginning of a new year but not exactly a month with a bright, clean calendar page - it is weighted down by last year's unfinished business.

In January 2009 North Coast Voices was writing about climate change denialists and their opposition to Rudd's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the rising costs of electricity, water, transport, the Liberal Party leader, Conroy's Internet censorship plan, religion, Twitter personas, Monsanto and the plight of Antarctic whales.

Looking back at our posts from last month and forward to those posts scheduled for the beginning of this month, it seems that little has changed for the Australian blogosphere or, to a lesser degree, for the mainstream media.

A quick Internet scan shows that climate change, rising costs, Internet censorship, whales, religion etc., are still on our collective list of concerns in January 2010.

Political, economic and social change continues at snail's pace.

Larvatus Prodeo has an amusing take on the year ahead.

Drawing from I Stand Connected

The Great Australian Internet Blackout is on 25-29 January & Australia Day!

From the protest Website:

What’s the problem?
The Federal Government is pushing forward with a plan to force Internet Service Providers to censor the Internet for all Australians. This plan will waste millions of dollars and won't make anyone safer.
Join us and take action!
The Great Australian Internet Blackout is a combined online and offline demonstration against imposed online censorship. We’re collaborating with Electronic Frontiers Australia to make sure every Australian knows why this draconian policy is unacceptable.

Go to The Great Australian Internet Blackout and find out how you can take part.

Happy New Year!

From all of us here at North Coast Voices.

May 2010 be a very good year for bloggers and readers everywhere

A Personal 2009 End Of Year Political Shame List

Like many people who use the Internet on a daily basis I have been alarmed at where the Rudd Government's mandatory national ISP-level filtering scheme is leading both Australian society and ordinary citizens going quietly about their daily business.
Also like many others, I have begun to express my concerns to elected members of Federal Parliament by telephone, letter and/or email.
So as part of my efforts during December I sent each and every Labor member of the Senate and House of Representatives a short email on the subject.

This is a list of those members of the Labor Government who have apparently decided that the issue of Internet censorship is not worth even a brief moment of their time and therefore deleted my emails without reading:

Forshaw, Michael (Senator) Senate webpage
Pratt, Louise (Senator) Own website
Sterle, Glenn (Senator) Senate webpage
Bevis, Arch (MP) Own website
Bird, Sharon (MP) Own website
Burke, Anna (MP) Own website
Combet, Greg (MP) Own website
Danby, Michael (MP) Own website
Ferguson, Martin (MP) Own website
Irwin, Julia (MP) ALP webpage
Kerr, Duncan (MP) Own website

Marino, Nola (MP) Own website
Neumann, Shayne (MP) ALP webpage

Perrett, Graham (MP)Own website

Price, Roger (MP) Own website
Rea, Kerry (MP) Own website
Sullivan, Jon (MP) Own website
Turnour, Jim (MP) Own website

Bloggers who are on the Commonwealth electoral role might like to take note of these names.

In their turn, those listed politicians with their own websites might like to consider what would happen to their election campaigning or general self-promotion if one of their website entries addressed a subject falling within ACMA's very broadly defined 'Refused Classification' category or they directly linked (or indeed linked to a site which in turn linked) to a URL which was accidentally or deliberately included in the official secret blacklist.
Remembering of course that it is ludicrously easy to end up on this complaints generated banned list (and even the nine politicians on this list who tried to place their websites beyond the current reach of ACMA and auDA would get short-shift under a new censorship regime).
As for researching any contentious new bill before Parliament - well that could become rather tricky if the need to know was related to certain political/social/health issues and, such post-2011 research would not be something which MPs could reliably pass across to the Parliamentary Library with a request for assistance because the librarians' ability to access Internet searches may be compromised as well.

UPDATE:
Polley, Helen (Senator) at http://senatorhelenpolley.com.au/ has added herself to the list of parliamentarians who deleted the email without bothering to read.
While I'm at it I think that a hat tip is due to all those Federal Labor politicians who did read actually my email, from Treasurer Wayne Swan through to various ministers, parliamentary secretaries and a bevy of backbenchers.
A special thanks to hardworking Labor MP for Page, Janelle Saffin, who took the time during her Christmas break to personally acknowledge receipt of the email.

Favourite word picture of 2009 and other quirks

Favourite word picture of 2009:
"just got booted out of the conference center..."
{The limp lettuce leaf in any Oz political salad, Senator Steve Fielding, tweeting at COP15}

Least favourite second incarnation on the Internetz:
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) died years ago. This think tank had fun slogans like "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world", "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" and "a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.
Unfortunately Kristol and Co are now up and running again at Foreign Policy Initiative which started up in 2009. The new website tells us that "The United States remains the world's indispensable nation -- indispensable to international peace, security, and stability, and indispensable to safe-guarding and advancing the ideals and principles we hold dear."

Most predictable election result:
"Preference data for the Bradfield by-election has now been published by the Australian Electoral Commission, making it possible to assess the success or otherwise of the Christian Democratic Party's tactic in nominating nine candidates for the by-election.Standing nine candidates has been costly for the CDP, as none of its candidates reached the 4% required for return of deposit or to attract public funding. In total the nine candidates received 2,524 votes or 3.58% of the vote, but 1,054 votes or 1.49% were recorded by James Whitehall who had the Number 1 position on the ballot paper and so received the donkey vote." {Antony Green's Election Blog 25th December 2009}

A quote to remember:
"As Boris said over on Stoat, "If there's something stupid to believe, there is someone on the internet who believes it." {From Rabett Run 21st December 2009}

The growing litigation pile belonga Monsanto:
"A mountain of lawsuits against Monsanto and related companies have been removed to federal court.This summer and fall, 161 lawsuits were filed in Putnam Circuit Court alleging Monsanto and related companies are responsible for causing cancer." {The West Virginia Record 23rd December 2009}

Worst OZ commercial decision of 2009:
iSnack 2.0 - nuff said!

Something for the 'Obama is the Anti-Christ' assorted nuts:
"The first family arrived on the island of Oahu and President Obama and his wife Michelle started Christmas Day with a gym workout at 6.40am, returning more than an hour later. The first couple did not exchange gifts, aides said, and did not attend church." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}

A little festive season hysteria:
"Police from Blacktown Local Area Command want to dispel rumours circulating on a social networking website that a man, Dennis Ferguson, is living in Doonside in Sydney’s west.The claims have been investigated by police, in consultation with the Department of Housing, and the information posted on the website is incorrect. This is a case of mistaken identity and the resident of a street in Doonside is not Dennis Ferguson as has been reported on the social networking site. Police are urging those people transmitting false information to cease immediately." {NSW Police media release 22nd December 2009}

Most disturbing statistic of the year:
"NSW Council for Civil Liberties secretary Stephen Blanks said a pattern of police shootings had emerged in the past year. Four people have been killed by NSW Police this year." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}
This propensity to ape a fictional vision of police machismo by using deadly force appears to have been growing steadily in recent years.
Between 1990 and 2007 87 people were shot and killed by police in Australia and the most dangerous time of day to have an aggressive confrontation with police seems to be between 4pm and 8pm.

Most likeable blog:
Still Life With Cat - Clarencegirl once told me that this was a quietly insightful, gently humorous, venom-free zone and I wholeheartedly agree!

That unwanted prediction for 2010:
"ELECTRICITY, gas, water and public transport costs will all increase in 2010, while the average grocery shop will make a bigger dent in the family budget." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}

Most laughable Oz politician of this any year:
Just take your pick! Abbott, Abetz, Tuckey, Minchin, Pyne, Joyce, Fielding, Keneally,............

The Arsehat of all Arsehats in 2009:
Andrew Bolt - for services to Oz's racist underbelly, the anti-science lobby and general contrariety. {See almost any post on his Herald-Sun blog}

Pic from Crikey