Labor wants to play net nanny for us

Kim Beazley today announced Labor’s internet policy, the key point of which was that ISP’s would be made to block violence and porn. Rather than relying on end user filters, it would be mandated by law, content would be filtered by the ISP which would be required to provide a “clean feed” to consumers.

According to Mr Beazley:

“It was “too hard” for many parents to install internet blockers on their computers to prevent offensive material being downloaded.” “The point at which you can do that [effectively ban such material] is with the ISP,”

Now, what is so hard about applying filter software on your PC? If you can’t do that, you’re too stupid to be using the internet. And, whats so hard about taking responsibility as a parent and supervising what your kids do on the net?

Labor’s policy aims to protect those who can’t, or can’t be bothered doing these things.

They propose that the “clean feed” be the default for all users, and that people who wanted porn, blood and guts would have to specifically request access to it. (I can imagine, you tick the “Yes, I’m a pervert” box on the signup form).

I have several problems with the approach Labor proposes. First, if government is involved in regulating the internet, they will inevitably fuck it up for everyone … witness technological success stories such as digital television, pay TV, etc, wait for them to screw up VOIP. Second, filtering at this level will inevitably be broad brush and filter out stupid stuff (for example, about breastfeeding … which is something my daughter was unable to research for a school assignment at one time when I had the filter settings turned up too high). Third, it is likely to reduce internet performance and drive up ISP costs - why should I as a responsible user need to pay higher costs to protect stupid/lazy/careless people from themselves?

Response by the government and industry to Labor’s proposals. Pretty much in line with my views.

Technorati Tags: internet, filtering, ISP

Desperate and despicable

I’ve been following the coronial inquest into the death of Mrs Dianne Brimble over the last week or so. Mrs Brimble died on board the Pacific Sky cruise ship in September 2002. She was found dead on the floor of a group of men’s cabin, naked, apparently having died of an overdose of the date rape drug, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB, GBH, fantasy). Eight Adelaide men, Mark Robin Wilhelm, Matthew Graham Slade, Dragan Losic, Petar Vladimir Pantic, Ryan Kym Kuchel, Letterio Silvestri, Luigi Vitale and Sakelaros Kambouris, have been named by police as “persons of interest”.

These delightful characters apparently met Mrs Brimble at the ship’s disco on the first night of the cruise. Between then and when she was found dead in their cabin, Wilhelm had sex with her and had photos of this taken by his mates, which they proudly showed to other passengers, and another, Silvestri had received oral sex from her (although what is more likely is he stuck his cock in an unconscious woman’s mouth …what a buzz for him!). Then, after she’d died, our heroes planned to toss her body overboard, but found there was too much traffic on the ship.

After the tragedy, they continued to treat it all as a big joke. They seemed to spend their time harassing women passengers, including such delightful treats as grabbing and kissing them, singing “Who let the dogs out” and barking at them, approaching teenage girls and asking to see their girly bits and offering them “fun and excitement” in their room and other delightful seduction techniques. Women passengers giving evidence at the inquest have said they thought the group of men strange and threatening.

Now, I ask myself, what sort of losers drug women to get a root? What sort of dickheads like to share women with their mates, and take photos of their deeds? (so they can circle jerk together later on).

My theory - these 8 have some major suppressed sexual identity issues. No doubt they are in love with (a) themselves and (b) each other. However, they get around shagging as many women, willing or not, as they possibly can, to show each other what big men they are, when they’d rather be sharing some good sex among themselves.

Interesting also to note that the 8 are from Adelaide - the weird sex crime/serial killer capital of Australia.

Update (25/3/2006) - good article in today’s SMH about the inquest. Not in the online text, but in the paper itself, one thing that surprised me were the ages of the men under suspicion. Much older than I thought - to be precise, 33, 32, 45, 28,29, 42, 41 and 43 (31/3/2006 - I stand corrected, thats their ages now, from what I gather).

Update (29/3/2006): seems like the police are now taking Mrs Brimble’s death more seriously than to date, with the homicide squad now investigating. I’m fascinated to know why its taken 4 years to get to this point. Also, I heard on the news last night that 4 or 5 of the “persons of interest” have criminal records, mostly for drug related offences, but one had a rape conviction.

Technorati Tags: Dianne Brimble, GBH, date rape

Would you like garlic with that?

A 75 year old grandfather became a porn actor in Russia after wandering onto the set by mistake.  According to the director:

“I wandered over to ask him to leave when I saw this massive package straining against his trousers.”

Too much information.  Well try this.

He believes in the power of garlic, and rubs it on his dick before filming action scenes …. a habit his female co-stars have complained about.

Technorati Tags: porn, garlic

Long weekend

Its been a long weekend here, so I didn’t have work today. Woo hoo!!!

I’ve done stuff all this weekend though, I’m feeling really flat and unmotivated at the moment.

Slobo

Former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who died last weekend in prison while on trial in The Hague for war crimes, was buried this weekend in his home town of Pozarevac in Serbia. Thousands turned out in Belgrade to mourn his death - it is clear that there are many Serbs who believe Milosevic, the architect of wars in the 1990’s in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, is some sort of hero, rather than a war criminal.

This sort of sentiment was evident in the crowd in Belgrade:

“As long as Serbia and Serbs are alive, Slobodan Milosevic will not die,” said one speaker from the stage.

The crowd chanted: “We’ll never let Kosovo go. We’ll never let Kosovo go.”

“He was killed by The Hague, by Great Britain and the United States. He was a great man. Today, I feel sad, very sad,” said Kosta Bulatovic, 69, a Serb refugee from Kosovo.

This crowd was mainly comprised of Serbs in their 40’s and 50’s.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, Bosnian Serbs rallied in the town of Bijeljina, expressing their support for Milosevic and his war criminal mates, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. They were seeking to have withdrawn a genocide lawsuit against Serbia, and demand the UN end its pursuit of the Bosnian Serb “heroes”.

On the other hand, also in Belgrade, younger protesters protested against Milosevic:

“I want a happier future, a more positive future. It’s time for this country to move forward. But Europe is going to have to help us,” said Dragana, 39.

“Milosevic was a horrible man. He left this country poor and isolated. We don’t want to go back to those days,” said Zelko, 25.

So at least there is some hope for redemption for Serbia. As long as the Serbs persist in maintaining the old ethnic hatreds that have fuelled the many Balkan wars over the centuries, and in particular those of the 1990’s, and support and revere a criminal thug like Milosevic, they are simply out of step with the modern Europe they want to be part of. They really do need to dump the ultra-nationalism, denounce Milosevic as a war criminal who shamed the name of the Serb peoole, and get over all the bad blood between themselves and just about every other ethnic group in the Balkans. At least the Serbian government did the right thing, and denied requests for a state funeral for him.

The other thing the Serbs really need to do is hand over these two thugs to the UN to face their just desserts.

These are two charmers responsible for the Srebenica massacre in 1995 where several thousand Bosnian Muslims were massacred. Their brave soldiers also popularised the use of rape as a weapon of war. Another of those armies that are great at brutalising civilians, not such hot shots when confronted with a modern and disciplined enemy force - lots of those around ….Iraq’s army under Saddam, numerous African armies, and others I can’t think of at the moment.

Technorati Tags: Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia, Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, war crimes, genocide, Srebenica

Flies to a pile of shit

Once again, fans of the Canterbury Bulldogs football team are causing trouble, with unruly behaviour at and after Friday night’s NRL game in Sydney. The Bulldogs and their supporters roll of dishonour reads something like this:

HELLHOUNDS: ROLL OF DISHONOUR

August 2002

Exposed by The Sydney Morning Herald as having cheated the salary cap by more than $1.5 million over two years. Stripped of 37 competition points and fined $500,000.

March 2003

Woman accuses Bulldogs players of sexual assault. No charges laid.

February 2004

A woman alleges up to six Bulldogs had non-consensual sex with her at a Coffs Harbour hotel. No charges laid.

March 2004

Revelations that star forward Willie Mason was fined $25,000 for failing an in-house drugs test in 2003.

July 2005

Bulldogs fans ignite an explosive device at Telstra Stadium that rocks the venue and can be clearly heard on TV coverage. The culprits are never found.

March 2006

Two carloads of Bulldogs fans set upon three Tigers fans following the Dogs’ 47-12 win.

Even before this, they were at it.

According to Channel 9 commentator, Andrew Voss, who witnessed Friday night’s events:

“There is an air of intimidation at these [night] games,” he said. “And I’m not talking as a commentator, I’m talking as a fan who likes to bring his kids to the football.

“What I witnessed on Friday night was just frightening. I couldn’t believe it was happening. These Bulldogs fans were just going hell for leather and they just kicked the poor bloke in the head and he must have been at least 50. Alcohol is not a factor because these fans don’t drink.”

NSW Police Minister, Carl Scully, seems to have had enough of the Bulldogs, too. He has demanded to meet with NRL CEO, David Gallop, and Bulldogs CEO, Malcolm Noad, saying:

“The NRL has had great success in marketing the attractiveness of its game and it is becoming more and more popular, but this is a sore that needs to be dealt with,” Scully said.

“This unruly behaviour is disgusting and intimidatory and I urge the NRL and the club to bring in measures to prevent it happening again. Because if they don’t we will.

“I would like to see these fans banned from games and the onus is on the NRL to do that.”

The NRL gave the Bulldogs a suspended fine of 4 premiership points in 2004. According to Gallop,

“The Bulldogs have made real inroads into these problems and it would be a great shame to have to put points or a fine into play again.”

Yeah right! Seems to me they have no control over their fans. At least, to their credit, I suppose they at least managed to stop their players raping any women in the pre-season this year. Oh right, there was no crime committed because the police couldn’t find enough evidence to lay any charges in 2003 or 2004. But where there’s smoke there’s fire …. something dodgy happened. At the very least, they have a team of guys who like to share a root and enjoy going seconds, thirds etc, and watching each other in action. Hmmmm????

Some options being considered for dealing with the Bulldogs’ fan problems include using the police riot squad to control them around games (if they do, the police ought to bill the Bulldogs for the cost - why should taxpayers generally pay to control the pack of dickheads that this team attracts), play their games during the day rather than at night (obviously the boys can’t be trusted to behave themselves like civilised humans after dark) or play their games in closed (empty) stadiums. Once again, we have an example of inability to control a small-ish group, so we make things hard for all the normal fans in the hope that it will control the fuckwits. To the fuckwits, “Elif air ab tizak” and “Kul khara we moot”.*

The Bulldogs attract trouble like flies to a pile of shit. Whats the most effective way to get rid of the flies? Get rid of the pile of shit!

* go here, if you want to find out what these mean.

Technorati Tags: NRL, Canterbury, Bulldogs, unruly fans, dickheads, fuckwits

Anyone getting excited about the Commonwealth Games?

I can’t say that I am. Except perhaps for the cycling, its pretty hard to say its international competition of the highest standard. As of now, Australia is, as usual, dominating the medal count.

We’ll come back to the field a bit next week, because we suck at track and field and boxing and stuff like that, but will still dominate the games. I suppose Australian competitors can only beat the competition that they face, but in general its not all that strong. Whatever happened to Canada in swimming - in the 70’s and 80’s they were right up with Australia, but now they’re hardly noticeable.

While I thought it really good in Kuala Lumpur and Manchester that Aussies won just about everything at the Commonwealth Games, its just not as exciting anymore. “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy, oy” just doesn’t cut it anymore. (Its a bit like the mighty Canberra Raiders - when they won their first premiership in 1989 it was really exciting and Canberra really buzzed about it, when they won again the next year, it was a bit ho hum, I think because they were so dominant that winning was inevitable and expected.)

My favourite sport in the games is the cycling - its of a high standard, with Australians and English being world champions in many events. Its all pretty close, too. Some of those races are crazy - the madison especially (when’s it on?).

Things I don’t like about the games so far:

1. commentators (this seems to be a Channel 9 thing) referring to them as the “Comm Games”
2. Darrell Eastlake - just heard him doing commentary on the weighlifting. I know Channel 9 caters for the yob demographic in its sporting coverage, but please don’t inflict Big Dazza on us. I thought he’d disappeared from the airwaves forever years ago - wasn’t sure he was even still alive until I heard him tonight.
3. Nicole Livingston in the swimming commentary - seems to see her role as chief apologist for those swimmers who don’t do as well as expected (instead of this, they should be shamed for letting their country down …. and pissing taxpayers’ money down the drain by not winning)*

* just joking - I know the glory is in competing and trying your best (I just object to my taxes paying for them to enjoy their favourite sport).

Technorati Tags: Commonwealth Games, medals, cycling, commentators, Channel 9, Darrell Eastlake

Obesity isn’t caused by eating too much and exercising too little

Wow, according to a study, there is a virus called Ad-36, that researchers say can cause weight gain. Tests on more than 500 Americans found about 30 per cent of obese people had been exposed to the virus, compared with 11 per cent of non-obese people. Research in Australia produced similar rates.

So its not too much junk food and idleness thats the problem. All we need now is a vaccine against this virus and no-one will ever be fat again.

Amazing! Was this research sponsored by the fast food industry or something?

Technorati Tags: obesity, junk food, research

Thought Police at work

I noticed this story in today’s paper. A website spoofing John Howard has mysteriously vanished without explanation from the net. Yahoo, which hosted the site, seems unable to provide an explanation of why it has disappeared - whether it be technical reasons or censorship. I know which I’d be betting on! This is the same Yahoo which handed over records relating to a Chinese dissident who ended up getting sentenced to 10 years prison.

Stoush.net has a post about what I assume is the website in question. The link doesn’t work now.

Update: It seems it was the government wot did it! Supposedly on intellectual property grounds - it looked too similar to the PM’s real site. Here is a link to the speech that was on the bogus site.

Technorati Tags: censorship, Yahoo

Go team!

Who else is sick of all the crap in the press about Jana Pittman and Tamsyn Lewis?

In latest news, Pittman has withdrawn from the Queen’s Baton relay today, citing concerns over a hamstring injury she is trying to recover from before competing in the Commonwealth Games (do these games really need an el-cheapo imitation of the Olympic torch?). This comes after her statements recently about planning to leave Australia and base herself in England - she says the drama surrounding her feud with Lewis had been the last straw, among other criticisms of her, and that she no longer had the passion she once did to run for Australia.

I think Jana needs to grow a thicker skin and get over it. I think a lot of her problems are about her inability to live up to the standards she set before her injury prior to the Athens Olympics, including winning at the World Championships. I detect a lot of disappointment and frustration in her behaviour. Hopefully, she’ll do well in these Commonwealth Games.

As for Tamsyn Lewis, she seems to have a much higher public profile through TV and other appearances than her successes as an athlete warrant. Helps to be attractive and bubbly I guess! Jamaican athlete, Sandie Richards, puts across this comparison of Lewis’ record compared to Pittman’s:

“She is a top-class athlete, way better than Tamsyn will ever be so she should not comment on those sort of things. She should have just walked away and saved her energy for other things. “Jana is world class, she has been the top-ranked (400m hurdler) in the world. Has Tamsyn been ranked in anything? No.

“Tamsyn is getting sponsorship and all that good stuff. People are listening and giving her the glory and that is why she continues. If the newspaper wasn’t writing about her and paying her
attention I am sure she would shut up. Nobody else in the world knows who she is.”

Lewis needs to focus on her running if she is to succeed at the level Pittman has. It would be best if both of them did, and let their results speak for them - I’m sick of hearing the bitching. Officials with the Australian team claim to have hosed down the dispute between them - remains to be seen if that continues.

I read a story about government funding of sports on the weekend and saw that Tamsyn Lewis had received funding of $217k in the past 6 years from Athletics Australia and the Victorian Institute of Sport. Not a huge amount really (I don’t know what she makes from sponsorships and other sources) but you’d hardly say there’s been a great return on the investment of taxpayers’ money (I’m assuming that the AA funding comes from grants via the Australian Sports Commission). I wonder at what point do the funders of athletes decide that he/she has max’d out and its no longer worthwhile funding them for the likely results they might achieve.

Technorati Tags: Jana Pittman, Tamsyn Lewis, athletics, Commonwealth Games, bitchfight