Sunday 10 August 2008
Call to buy out water hoarders to save the Murray. Hold on, haven't we heard this before?
Saturday 9 August 2008
How do you spell pathetic? Answer: N.R.M.A.
Well, the NRMA has proved that saying correct, yet again.
Sydney Morning Herald journo Matthew Moore, who has been on a very admirable mission to expose the NSW Government's shortcomings, nay hypocrisies, in relation to freedom of information (FOI) has revealed, courtesy of one very p*ssed off NRMA member, that the NRMA has been playing games with its so-called information.
In an article titled "Secrets under the hood" Moore does a very nice job for NRMA members to reveal just what a pack of incompetents (although some might say mischiefs, while others might go further and say something a whole lot worse) the current regime at the NRMA happens to be.
Moore writes:
"If you think it is only government departments that have secrecy and spin as the core principles in their mission statements, take a look at the country's biggest motoring organisation, the NRMA.
To understand how it operates, go back to January when its president, Alan Evans, called on the State Government to ditch plans for a cycleway on Epping Road.
Evans issued a press statement headlined, "NRMA plan for Epping Road: Don't bump motorists for bikes". It said the NSW Government was wasting $7.6 million on the Epping Road bike path even though only 25 cyclists used it daily.
Instead of wasting $300,000 a cyclist, the Government should widen the road to make more room for cars and trucks, it said. In the news vacuum that is often part of a Sydney summer, Evans's punchy comments got page one treatment in the papers, which mentioned the full NRMA case was set out in a submission to the Roads and Traffic Authority. One NRMA member and cyclist, Nigel Withers, thought he would like to read that submission and tried to get hold of it.
When he couldn't find it on the NRMA website, he wrote to Evans asking for a copy. Evans replied on January 16 but would not hand over the submission. He offered this laughable excuse: "NRMA's submission to the RTA is now an internal departmental document." Withers wrote back, but this time was ignored. Undeterred, he tried the NRMA's Open Road magazine, explaining he had twice asked Evans for the submission without success. "Perhaps Open Road could print the submission in question," he wrote optimistically. Not likely.
The editor-in-chief of Open Road, David Naylor, replied on February 8, telling him his letter had been passed to the head of "government relations and public policy". Nothing came back, so Withers changed tack.
In May he submitted a freedom-of-information request to the Roads and Traffic Authority seeking a copy of "the NRMA submissions regarding bikeways on Epping Road". At least the RTA replied, even if it was not what he expected: "There are no documents relating to your request," they said.
How could there be no submission when the NRMA president had released a summary of it and confirmed in writing there was one?
This week I rang the the NRMA's PR team to find out and got the Withers treatment. For days they promised to send me a copy but it never arrived. Still, the excuses were diverting: "We genuinely did not know what submission you were talking about … The guys who wrote the submission were in the country … Our guys were not back in 'til yesterday … "
Finally, the NRMA admitted the RTA was right. There is no submission. The closest thing is a three-page document sent to the RTA in August 2006, 17 months before that press release about useless cycleways.
We still haven't seen that three-page document. Nor have we seen the survey of bike-lane usage the NRMA now says was done many months after the 2006 submission.
If the NRMA expects to be taken seriously, it should adopt the levels of transparency demanded of government. If it is going to quote from "surveys", it should post survey reports online to be scrutinised. The same goes for so-called submissions. An organisation this size should not be relying on misleading press statements alone to influence public debates.
Dear Google........
I am especially not impressed because the instructions on how to apply to have this image removed don't seem to help, because it doesn't present like this.
It comes up as a smaller fish-eye photo [cbk.jpg] without a Street View Help link in any way attached.
Ergo, no facility to have the image removed.
I might live in a NSW Northern Rivers street where the biggest thing to disturb the peace is usually the weekly garbage collection; however, this is not always the case and a private residence in my street has been subject to politically motivated ******** ***** **** *** **** ****** [redacted for privacy reasons].
I haven't spoken to anyone yet who appreciates pictures of their homes being copyrighted and given international distribution.
Now seriously thinking about pulling your adverts from this blog.
Yours in disgust,
clarencegirl
Most iconic image found on an Aussie blog this weekend
Friday 8 August 2008
Few really want to consult with Australian Government by blog
Most appear to have thought that the concept was O.K., but only those already engaged with politics and/or blogging were likely to use such a site.
There was little interest amongst focus group (as opposed to online survey) participants in actually reading comments made by others on such a blog/discussion forum.
Unsurprisingly no-one seemed to want Federal Labor's 'grand idea' to replace the traditional forms of community consultation.
Generally the public consultation indicated support for the development of a government online consultation web space that includes blogs, online discussion forums and details of public consultations.
• the discussion topic were relevant to their personal circumstances;
• they had the opportunity to nominate the topics for discussion;
• discussion forums included the participation of Government officials;
• a range of registration options were available;
• the site was well designed, easy to find and use;
• participants were free to express their opinion without censorship; and
• it were unbiased in its operation..........
While many respondents expressed their cynicism about Government actually participating in the discussion, some respondents were optimistic and believed that Government officials would take the website and its discussion forums seriously.
In other word, it's all pie in the sky. Because no government could resist political manipulation of such a blog.
For starters (if the Dept of F&D paper is any indication) it will require a higher level of information for registration and comment will be moderated.
How well I remember the quick censorship that members of the Howard Government put in place when FaceBook and YouTube political candidate sites suddenly became uncomfortable places for their egos during the 2007 federal election campaign.
$$ Beijing Olympics 2008 begin today $$
Let us all get our priorities right
Save the planet
A short word on US 08 from Crikey's Gary Rundle
The man who killed, beheaded, disemboweled, and souvenired and ate parts of a fellow traveller on a Canadian bus made no comment during hisarraignment other than "please kill me". He is believed to be covering the 2008 US presidential race.
Glad to see that I'm not the only one who finds the whole contest between McCain and Obama a bit of a bore.
The only real difference between the two is their age and the hair colour of their wives.
While that whole Kennedy-Camelot spiel that some Democrats are trying to run makes me want to chunder.
But then, I'm old enough to remember what a political fraud President Kennedy really was.
Wake me up when the whole thing's over - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thursday 7 August 2008
We're all seeing the big picture - here are some of the finer brushstrokes of US 08
Singer Mellecamp reportedly requests McCain election campaign to stop using his music.
R&B singer Moore reportedly sends C&D to Obama over use of his song Hold on I'm comin'.
Mar 08
April 08
May 08
Songwriter and US congressman John Hall objects to McCain using his song Still the One
Minnesota student reportedly tries to sell his vote on Ebay and court gives him 50 hours community service.
Disgruntled Democrats accuse Obama of wage discrimination against women.
Aug 08
Vale the Lower Lakes and Coorong, South Australia
Greg Hunt, the Coalition Shadow Minister for Environment has the audacity to attempt to lay the blame solely at the Rudd Government's door.
Hey, Stevo! Time for the belt and braces, mate
So I've decided to post a few tips as I come across them.
Introduction to Web Filters 1
How to bypass Websense filters
Proxy sites which circumvent server filters
Setting up your own proxy site - Glype Proxy
Surf from Texas
How to unblock websites
Is your ISP filtering P2P traffic?
Boing Boing's guide to defeating censorware [Classic from the archives]
Psst, Stevo......you do realise mate that there are also a number of other international sites which have been helping Chinese dissidents and others browse and publish. They will help anyone for free - even an old greybeard like me.
So do your worst in 2009-10.
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."