Journalists from around the world are reporting on the 2020 Presidential race — and offering perspectives not found in American media coverage — via Youtube
— via Adamtots
Same-sex marriage will be legal in Australia, with Parliament agreeing to change the Marriage Act and end the ban on gay and lesbian couples marrying.
Four members of the House of Representatives voted against the bill and some abstained, but an overwhelming majority voted for the bill.
Liberal senator Dean Smith’s bill will now become law after a day of cheers, tears and applause in the Lower House.
People queued for access to the public gallery to witness the law being changed and by the time of the final vote, they were packed into every spot — via ABC News
Former Chief Justice of Ireland John L Murray has warned that retained telecommunications data poses a threat to fundamental rights and freedoms
in a searing report [PDF] released on Tuesday alongside proposed amendments by the government to Ireland’s data retention laws.
Murray said Ireland’s data retention system touches every aspect of a person’s communications profile for a lengthy period of time.
[Data retention] establishes a form of mass surveillance of virtually the entire population of the state, involving the retention and storage of historic data, other than actual content, pertaining to every electronic communication, in any form, made by anyone and everyone at any time,
he wrote.
A vast amount of private information pertaining to the personal communications of virtually everyone in the state is now retained without the consent of those affected in databases maintained by each private service provider in fulfilment of its statutory obligations.
Ireland’s data retention regime, enacted in 2011, mandates that data related to phone calls, text messages, and phone location be kept for two years and IP addresses for internet connections for one year. Due to a decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) striking down a European Union data retention directive in 2014, Ireland’s laws in the area need to be modified to remain compliant.
The retained data is able to be currently accessed under a disclosure request by Irish Defence Forces, an officer of the Revenue Commissioners, the Garda Síochána (Irish Police), the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, or anyone with an appropriate court order or authorisation by the Data Protection Commissioner. The legislation also allows for individuals to request the data kept on them.
The former chief justice warned that safeguards in place for state authorities to access retained data could be undermined by those agencies believing they are entitled to the data if it is deemed useful by them.
Access to a person’s private historical communications data is an intrusion on their rights and on data which is personal to them,
Murray said. Mere utility or potential utility is not the test
— via ZDNet
In these dark days, an intergenerational warning is in order: Antifa folks, be wary. They are coming for you.
Some of us have seen this movie before. In my generation, when I was a teenage member of MSU’s SDS in the late 1960s, I remember the guy who was always yelling, Kill the pigs
, and encouraging us to burn down the ROTC building on campus. In later years, I heard from old SDS colleagues that when they sued the police, they learned that the outspoken guy was a police officer and his friends were informants.
For my dad’s generation, the right-wing takeover of a protest movement happened in Germany generations ago, so most Americans don’t even recognize Marinus van der Lubbe’s name. But the Germans remember well that fateful day 84 years ago: 27 February 1933. And many of them are looking at the confrontations in our streets and worrying.
It started when the government, struggling with questions of its own legitimacy and the instability of its leader, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. Historians are still debating whether the terrorist
was a mentally incompetent young man manoeuvred into place to take the fall for the crime, or was an actual communist ideologue (of limited intellectual means and probably schizophrenic; that seems to be one thing most agree on).
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation’s leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the people claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted — via AlterNet.org
Richard Dawkins Education Minister
Originally aired on television 10/03/1989 Re-broadcast from the archives: 10/08/2017 — via Youtube
— via Youtube
Mike Godwin, creator of Godwin’s law, has rescinded his own rule for those outraged by vile fascists marching the streets of Virginia, USA, at the weekend.
In other words, it’s OK to call these un-American white supremacists exactly what they are: By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you,
Godwin said on Sunday evening.
Godwin’s law states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one
. The unofficial extension of this is that the first person to bring up Hitler automatically loses the argument.
Godwin created the aphorism in the early 1990s, when he was the first in-house lawyer for the EFF. It was created partly as a humorous aside on bulletin board behaviour and partly as an exercise in mimetics and to encourage people to read more history. More than 20 years later it’s still cited online.
In the wake of white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which left one protestor dead and 30 injured, Godwin has, at least in this case, suspended his own law – or, rather, granted permission to break it. This comes after a plea from a fan online for him to respond to the scenes of fascists in America’s streets — via The Register (UK)
Roger Wilco. Pilot with the Tax Dept.
Originally aired on ABC TV: 09/10/2014 repeated from the archives — via Youtube
South Australia will be home to the world’s largest lithium ion battery thanks to a historic agreement between Tesla and the State Government.
And Tesla boss Elon Musk is promising to build it in 100 days, or it’s free. Key points:
A 100-megawatt (129 megawatt hour) battery is to be in place before summer It will provide energy stability for SA and also be emergency back-up for shortfalls Elon Musk is sticking by a 100 days or free
promise for SA taxpayers
Tesla will build the 100-megawatt battery which will store energy from French renewable company Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, which is still under construction.
The project will be in place before summer.
Mr Musk’s 100 days or it’s free
pledge starts once the grid interconnection agreement has been signed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Mr Portunity. Senior executive at a major news organisation
Originally aired on ABC TV: 24/03/2016 rebroadcast from the archives 08/06/2017 — via Youtube
In 1970 the Scarfolk Crime Commission embarked on the largest study into crime to date. After two years of intense investigation it found a startling correlation between the types of people who commit crime and their early life experiences.
The findings were unequivocal: 100% of criminals had also once been children.
The council immediately put into effect acts intended to reduce, if not entirely eradicate this insidious cause of crime. Thousands of children were rounded up in camps. Toys were burnt in massive pyres. Adults were sterilised. Anyone who had been in regular contact with children, or had ever been a child, was quarantined in vast bunkers specially built several storeys below the council building.
Though Scarfolk was reduced to a ghost town, the scheme proved a success. During the first month that these stringent measures had been implemented not one crime had been committed. Consequently, at the 1972 Conference of Sham Utopias, a local conservative MP predicted that the most successful towns, and even countries, of the future will be those that eradicate all citizens who have any connection to, or dealings with, children or the adults they grow into — via Scarfolk Council
Gerry Mander (see above) was the Scarfolk Party candidate in the 1974 election. Though much of his nationalistic campaign consisted of subliminal brainwashing techniques, complicated satanic invocations, and simply lying and punching liberals in the face, he did also proffer tangible promises.
For example, he wanted Britain to be the first western nation to construct an underground sewage system designed specifically to transport its disabled and sick to landfill sites. He also insisted that women finally be recognised as the most valuable resource in their husband’s or father’s livestock.
Most of all, he strongly promoted British exports such as conker wine and badger cheese and demanded that the UK be acknowledged as the clear trade leader out of all the world’s authoritarian third world nations — via Scarfolk Council
The story of Australia’s costly internet bungle illustrates the hazards of mingling telecommunication infrastructure with the impatience of modern politics. The internet modernization plan has been hobbled by cost overruns, partisan maneuvering and a major technical compromise that put 19th-century technology between the country’s 21st-century digital backbone and many of its homes and businesses.
The government-led push to modernize its telecommunications system was unprecedented, experts say — and provides a cautionary tale for others who might like to try something similar.
Australia was the first country where a totally national plan to cover every house or business was considered,
said Rod Tucker, a University of Melbourne professor and a member of the expert panel that advised on the effort. The fact it was a government plan didn’t necessarily make it doomed. In Australia, we have changes of governments every three years, which really works against the ability to undertake long-term planning, and the long-term rollouts of networks like this.
Australia poses natural connectivity challenges. It lies oceans away from other countries, and any network would have to connect far-flung cities separated by its sparsely populated interior.
Still, Australia had high hopes for its ambitious internet project. Started in 2009, the initiative, known as the National Broadband Network, was intended to bring advanced fibre-optic technology to the doorstep of just about every home and business. It was initially estimated to cost 43 billion Australian dollars, shared by the government and the private sector — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Richard Shinnery, NBN Consultant
Originally aired on ABC TV: 20/04/2017 — via Youtube
Celebrated satirist and comedian John Clarke has died suddenly, aged 68. Your favourite Clarke and Dawe sketches
Iconic comedy duo John Clarke and Bryan Dawe entertained audiences with their political satire skits for over 25 years. We’ve collated some of their most loved segments and classic exchanges.
Clarke died from natural causes while bushwalking in Victoria over the weekend.
John died doing one of the things he loved the most in the world, taking photos of birds in beautiful bushland with his wife and friends. He is forever in our hearts,
his family said in a statement issued by the ABC.
We are aware of what he has meant to so many for so many years, throughout the world but especially in Australia and New Zealand.
We are very grateful for all expressions of sympathy and love which John would have greatly appreciated
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scott Morrison, Federal Treasurer
Originally aired on ABC TV: 06/04/2017 — via Youtube
Hector Pastel, Senior Meteorologist
Originally aired on ABC TV: 30/03/2017 — via Youtube
Wal Socket. Energy Consultant
Originally aired on ABC TV: 16/03/2017 — via Youtube
Mr Xavier Breth. Online News Director
Originally aired on ABC TV: 09/03/2017 — via Youtube
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